Review: Life as we knew it by Susan Beth Pheffer

 

 

Title:  Life as we knew it
Series:  Last Suvivors#1
Author: Susan Beth Pfeffer
Genre: Dystopian YA
Publication date:  01 October 2006

 

 

Goodreads blurb:
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 neighbours 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.

My thoughts:
I absolutely LOVED this book.  We read about the events in Miranda and her family’s life through her journal entries. In the beginning just after the meteor hits, Miranda acts like any normal teenager – off course her mom is just overreacting.  They are not really going to need all this food they are stockpiling.  And there is no way she is ever going to wear those long johns!!

But soon the electricity goes out, shops are empty and gas is almost unaffordable.  Natural disasters are happening all over the world and millions are dead.  Life as she knew it, is over for Miranda.

The atmosphere of the book was just so, so real.  It is a dark and brooding story but somehow it left me with a feeling of hope and family.  It also really hit home for me when I was scraping food into the trash in the evenings.  It felt like a sin wasting food . . .

I know there is a sequel already out and I am looking around trying to find it.  I highly recommend this book.