Title: Life as We
Knew It
Author: Susan Beth Pfeffer
Series: Last Survivors #1
Published: 1st October 2006
Length: 337 pages
Warnings: kissing,
suicide
Source: Library
Other info: The
other two in the trilogy are The Dead and the Gone and The World We Live In. Pfeffer has also written Portraits of Little
Women and, more recently, Blood Wounds.
Summary : It's almost the end of Miranda's sophomore year
in high school, and her journal reflects the busy life of a typical teenager:
conversations with friends, fights with mom, and fervent hopes for a driver's
license. When Miranda first begins hearing the reports of a meteor on a
collision course with the moon, it hardly seems worth a mention in her diary.
But after the meteor hits, pushing the moon off its axis and causing worldwide
earthquakes, tsunamis, and volcanoes, all the things Miranda used to take for granted
begin to disappear. Food and gas shortages, along with extreme weather changes,
come to her small Pennsylvania town; and Miranda's voice is by turns petulant,
angry, and finally resigned, as her family is forced to make tough choices
while they consider their increasingly limited options. Yet even as suspicious
neighbors stockpile food in anticipation of a looming winter without heat or
electricity, Miranda knows that that her future is still hers to decide even if
life as she knew it is over.
Review: Scientists
say that an asteroid will hit the moon on Wednesday. Never mind though! Nothing
will happen! Of course. Volcanoes and other natural disasters are set off when
the moon is knocked off course. It's a fight for survival for Miranda and her
family of two brothers, mum and long time family friend Mrs Nesbitt. Slowly,
normality falls apart as electricity and school become things you can't depend
on, you have no idea how your relatives are unless their names are read out on
a list of the dead, and the weather is
even more unpredictable than usual. The entire book is a realistic(ish. No
paranormal elements here. I say the ish because we don't know what would really
happen in this situation. Yet.)survival story with a tiny bit of romance.
The setup is very good. We get a couple of days before the
asteroid hits and how everyone's hyped
up(they think it'll be harmless), and then their increasing panic when they
realise it's not, and so on.
Maybe our little family of survivors handled this a little
too maturely. There's not much extreme panic on their part, and the fact they
were thinking so clearly, all of them, was just slightly unrealistic.
The rest of it was brilliant. It was told from Miranda's POV
with diary entries, dated as they happen. I like the irregularity of the
entries, which I think is a good way of showing that life could sometimes be
really hectic or there were more important things to do. There's a lot of
description in all parts, both of what is happening and of Miranda's feelings.
I like the way characters come and go for differen reasons,
which is realistic. Does it make me a horrible person that I didn't
particularly mind when the romance with Dan didn't work out? I saw it as just
another going in Miranda's life, and also think that a lot of romance
would simply distract from the story.
The few characters we see through the majority of the book,
I feel as though we get to know them all really well. The fact there was only a
few of them worked well, and seeing the way they all reacted to one-another is
a good way of getting closer to them.
Overall: Strength 5 tea to a great survivor story that
I really want to read more of
Your rating system is SO cute. Love it. Great review.
ReplyDelete