Life As We Knew It (Hardcover)

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Key Phrases: post office today, baseball camp, Reverend Marshall, New York, Miller's Pond (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

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.

Veteran author Susan Beth Pfeffer, who penned the young adult classic The Year Without Michael over twenty years ago, makes a stunning comeback with this haunting book that documents one adolescent's journey from self-absorbed child to selfless young woman. Teen readers won't soon forget this intimate story of survival and its subtle message about the treasuring the things that matter most—-family, friendship, and hope.--Jennifer Hubert

From School Library Journal

Grade 6-8–Pfeffer tones down the terror, but otherwise crafts a frighteningly plausible account of the local effects of a near-future worldwide catastrophe. The prospect of an asteroid hitting the Moon is just a mildly interesting news item to Pennsylvania teenager Miranda, for whom a date for the prom and the personality changes in her born-again friend, Megan, are more immediate concerns. Her priorities undergo a radical change, however, when that collision shifts the Moon into a closer orbit, causing violent earthquakes, massive tsunamis, millions of deaths, and an upsurge in volcanism. Thanks to frantic preparations by her quick-thinking mother, Miranda's family is in better shape than many as utilities and public services break down in stages, wild storms bring extremes of temperature, and outbreaks of disease turn the hospital into a dead zone. In Miranda's day-by-day journal entries, however, Pfeffer keeps nearly all of the death and explicit violence offstage, focusing instead on the stresses of spending months huddled in increasingly confined quarters, watching supplies dwindle, and wondering whether there will be any future to make the effort worthwhile. The author provides a glimmer of hope at the end, but readers will still be left stunned and thoughtful.–John Peters, New York Public Library
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Product Details

• Reading level: Young Adult
  
• Hardcover: 352 pages
• Publisher: Harcourt Children's Books (October 1, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0152058265
• ISBN-13: 978-0152058265
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.7 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (114 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #141,175 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

40 of 41 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Hope against hope in a world of lunacy......., September 11, 2006

By	M. Hanners (New York) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

In this new novel "Life As We Knew It" by Susan Beth Pfeffer, the author of the highly regarded "The Year Without Michael" and many other books, a cataclysmic astronomical event threatens the very existence of the world and all of humankind. An event like this is too immense to imagine in any detail, but the story is told from the point of view of one 16 year old girl living in Pennsylvania, and the apocalyptic event is viewed from the perspective of one person in this seemingly isolated corner of the world.

Miranda begins her diary entries with the usual teen business of school, friends and family with a little digression into figure skating fandom. The forecast collision between asteroid and moon seems like a fun event, as well as an excuse for homework assignments from her teachers, in other words, of interest but not particularly interesting. But the unexpected happens and the collision knocks the moon out of its normal orbit around earth and terrible things begin to happen. Life as Miranda knew it changes quickly and relentlessly from one of normality to a frightening spectre of violent death and terrible deprivation. As suddenly as this happens in parts of world where tsunamis, earthquakes and floods wipe out huge areas of land and people, the changes in Miranda's world occur more gradually but relentlessly. Miranda's world becomes more and more focused on the tragedy and the effects of the global climactic change, and her frame of reference as a teen in a world of school, friends, sports and the future, shrinks down to the day to day survival of herself and her family of four. Miranda struggles to maintain her identity, her physical existence and her hope in the face of frightening odds against her.

The novel is a dark microcosmic view of a small town family facing the worst that life can throw at them, but it never loses hope even in the face of hopelessness. Miranda muses at one point in the book that she might as well enjoy today no matter how bad it is, because tomorrow was going to be worse. And yet there are little joys, rays of hope, tantalizing moments of what passes for normal in the midst of an ever darkening prognosis for survival. Miranda remains true to who she is and her family shows the strength of their commitment to each other throughout this ordeal.

There are no fairy tale endings to this book, but it does end on a hopeful note and the reader is left with the conviction that better days may yet be ahead. There are moments of humor as well as despair, moments of anger as well as love and a compelling story line that makes it hard to put the book down. Miranda's fate becomes a personal issue, we want to know what happens to her and her family and we care.

This is the author's best book to date, sure to be a classroom classic and popular with teens as well as an engrossing read for adults. Don't miss this one!

27 of 31 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Do the concerns of a teenage girl disappear in a post-apocalyptic world? , July 6, 2007

By	Jessica Lux (Rosamond, CA) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

Do the concerns of a teenage girl disappear in a post-apocalyptic world? Not for Miranda, the protagonist in Susan Beth Pfeffer's novel about life after a climate-changing astrological event. The moon has been struck by an asteroid, knocked into an orbit nearer Earth, causing tsunamis, flooding, and volcanic activity. High school junior Miranda watches her world turn upside down. Her mother chastises her children for thoughts of generosity and declares that they must think only about their own family's survival. They learn to shop for every possible food item when the shelves are stocked, how to maneuver the gas rationing lines, and how to make the most of their few daily hours of electricity. The family must protect their cat to prevent him from being snatched from the road as a food source.

Miranda thinks most of her mother's disaster-readiness is a bit silly, but she's willing to play along until the world rights itself. Unfortunately, New York, Boston, and Rhode Island are completely under ocean water, and the president has abandoned Washington, D.C. for his Texas ranch. Miranda is still coping with the death of one of her circle of friends, and feeling alienated from her two remaining friends. She has a crush on Dan, and they've been flirting at the town pond every day. Miranda's mom is rationing the canned goods, but Miranda is not above feeling resentful about the family's focus on nutrition for their precious younger son.

Life as We Knew It is an excellent book for discussion in a classroom or book club. Issues of looting, bribery, and rationing are raised. Miranda watches as one friend gets lost to a religious cult, while the parents of her other friend end up sending her off with an older man for a better life (they hope) down south. Services we take for granted, like the post office and police station, run sporadically and only when ordinary citizens put their lives on the line to be there.

The strength of Pfeffer's book is in Miranda's voice, and her conflicted feelings about self-sacrifice, jealousy, and a desire to be a normal teenager. Life does go on even after the apocalypse, and Miranda shows us how a modern teen might react. The female friendships in the book are a bit weak and serve more as background "hot button issues" than as an integral part of the story. Overall, this is a must-read, and definitely a book to try on reluctant readers.

32 of 39 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great Reading!, October 2, 2006

By	Monty Rainey (New Braunfels, TX) - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

This book caught my eye and when I read the dust jacket, I thought my teenage granddaughter would really enjoy it, and it helped that this is a Junior Library Guild Selection. I wanted to read a few pages for myself and when I did, I quickly became consumed by this wonderfully written story. I have not read Susan Beth Pfeffer before, but if LIFE AS WE KNEW IT is any indication of her other works, then I would highly recommend them all!

This fictional story is told in the first person of a 16 year old girl just finishing her Sophomore year and is written in the form of her journal. As the school year is coming to a close, all the buzz is around a meteor that is on a collision course with the moon. It was hailed as a big event in that it could be seen quite easily from earth with a simple pair of binoculars. The event turned out to be far more than a unique viewing experience, but rather a cataclysmic event that would alter human history. The collision would alter the moons orbit of the earth, moving it much closer than its' current orbit, causing catastrophic tidal waves, volcanic activity like never before, earthquakes, and sending humanity in a struggle for survival.

This book is particularly appropriate for young adults, but older readers will enjoy it as well. The young subject, Miranda, is followed as she faces life from an entirely new perspective. I believe readers both young and old will come away being much more appreciative of the tremendous luxury and freedoms we enjoy. Along the way, the book also stresses the importance of family, preparation, cooperation, sacrifice and many other virtues that we could all use a reminder of now and then.

I do have two very minor complaints about the book. It doesn't particularly cast a stellar light on Christianity as its' primary references to faith revolve around one of Miranda's friends who becomes a religious fanatic and her Pastor who is, as Miranda describes him, despicable. There is also a slight inflection of politics when Miranda's mother states that they are not yet desperate enough to get their news from Fox News and that the president is a moron. But those brief left leaning references soon pass and the rest of the book is so well written, even the staunchest of conservatives will easily overlook them.

I don't want to give away any more detail, so let me just summarize by saying, I highly recommend this book. I really enjoyed it and believe my granddaughter will too.