Life As We Knew It

I really procrastinated on the YA Dystopian Challenge... things just got busy!  I've had Susan Beth Pfeffer's Life As We Knew It on my bookshelf for quite some time {along with The Dead & The Gone} and finally picked it up last week.  After starting the novel, I couldn't believe it sat on a shelf for so long!

Life As We Knew It is the story of what happens after the moon is knocked closer in orbit to the earth.  Struggling to survive in a world of despair and tragedy, 16 year old Miranda keeps an {almost} daily journal.  Through these journal entries, we are transported to a time when nothing but surviving the day matters.

Miranda is a powerful guide through hell on earth.  I stayed up reading this novel and was so sucked in it was like I felt everything Miranda felt.  She described how cold she was and I swear I got colder, she described her hunger and I was hungry, she wrote about the silence and the dark and even though it wasn't silent or dark in my house, I could swear I was right there with her, trying to stay warm by a fire and quiet my rumbling belly.

So what happens when an asteroid knocks the moon too close to earth?  Massive tidal waves and flooding, earthquakes, dormant volcanoes erupting all over the world, terrifying thunderstorms and eventually freezing temperatures, diminishing food supplies, deadly disease and the fight to survive on a daily basis.  Miranda, her brothers Jon & Matt, their mother and their neighbor Mrs. Nesbitt must come together to survive through this unpredictable and scary world. 

This book was beyond good.  I love novels about the end of the world, surviving through it all and carrying on.  Not only was Life As We Knew It mesmerizing, it was also informative and accurate.  Susan Beth Pfeffer was sure to check her facts about space and what our moon has the power to create {destroy?} and what it really means to survive.  This wasn't full of lovey-dovey rainbows and unicorns survival- it was raw reality.  No sugar coated survival here!  I even learned a few things, which is crazy considering Joe & I are always researching and discussing survival and end-of-the-world stuff.  I would definitely suggest reading this novel.

I'm reading The Dead & The Gone right now... it is a companion novel basically- same time frame, but a different main character {Alex} and a different location {New York City}.  So far, I love it.  I'm sure I'll finish it tonight, so expect a review soon.  I also bought This World We Live In, the final installment of The Last Survivors trilogy.  Can't wait to finish reading and review book 2 {The Dead & The Gone} and book 3 {This World We Live In}... see you soon!

 

write to be understood, speak to be heard, read to grow