Life As We Knew It

 

Title: Life As We Knew It

Author: Susan Beth Pfeffer

Publisher: Harcourt Children's Books

Released: October 1, 2006

 Miranda’s disbelief turns to fear in a split second when a meteor knocks the moon closer to the earth. How should her family prepare for the future when worldwide tsunamis wipe out the coasts, earthquakes rock the continents, and volcanic ash blocks out the sun? As summer turns to Arctic winter, Miranda, her two brothers, and their mother retreat to the unexpected safe haven of their sunroom, where they subsist on stockpiled food and limited water in the warmth of a wood-burning stove.

Told in journal entries, this is the heart-pounding story of Miranda’s struggle to hold on to the most important resource of all--hope--in an increasingly desperate and unfamiliar world. - Goodreads

After reading The Road by Cormac McCarthy, I was looking for another post-apocalyptic read, so I picked this up. I sadly did not enjoy it. I'm just going to go straight to the positives and negatives.

Positives:

• I really enjoyed the idea and story the author had for this book. It really will make readers think: what would you do in this situation? I am very interested in this type of story, so naturally I found the concept really intriguing. 

Negatives:

• The characters! What makes a book enjoyable, for me, are the characters and this book really fell short in this area. I had a hard time connecting for any of the characters and as the book went on, my dislike just grew. Just a side note: about half way through the book the author stops calling the main character's younger brother Jonny and starts referring to him as Jon. There is no explanation given and this just really bothered me.
• I really disliked the way it was written. It was written in journal format, but came across as very unbelievable. I don't know any teenage girl who would write a journal that in depth. It really lacked emotion from the main character and maybe if there was more emotion I would have connected with her character more.
• As I stated before, I had just finished The Road before starting this, so some aspects of this book were really unbelievable for a post-apocalyptic novel. One aspect is the fact that everything/everyone was so civilized. In The Road, you see cases of cannibalism and many more cases of death. In this book, the author made it seem so much more civil. When I think of the end of the world, I don't see everyone sharing and being so civil about everything. I see people doing what they can to survive.

Overall, I did not enjoy this book. I would only recommend this if you are a huge post-apocalyptic fan and can look over my negatives.

Rating: 2/5 stars