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| Life As We Knew It | 
 enlarge | Author: Susan Beth Pfeffer
Publisher: Harcourt Children's Books
Category: Book
Buy New: $21.70
New (6) Used (9) from $11.59
Avg. Customer Rating:  76 reviews
Sales Rank: 158561
Format: Bargain Price
Media: Hardcover
Reading Level: Young Adult
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 352
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1
Dimensions (in): 8.4 x 5.6 x 1.1
ASIN: B0013L8B9M
Publication Date: October 1, 2006
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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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
Product Description
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.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 71 more reviews...
 Hope against hope in a world of lunacy....... September 11, 2006
33 out of 34 found this review helpful
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!
Great Reading! October 2, 2006
31 out of 53 found this review helpful
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.
 Do the concerns of a teenage girl disappear in a post-apocalyptic world? July 6, 2007
20 out of 24 found this review helpful
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.
 The wrong message September 27, 2007
20 out of 42 found this review helpful
What should you do if a sudden natural disaster - an asteroid hitting the moon - causes tsunamis to drown both coasts, destroying our electrical and communications grid, and provoking new volcanic eruptions that obscure the sun? Should you band together with others to distribute available food and fuel to the needy and find alternative ways to grow food? Not in this book, at least. Here the heroine mom thinks to clean out the food stores before anyone else realizes the extent of the disaster. She retreats to her home with her wood stove and denies food from her well-stocked pantry to anyone other than her immediate family. While she thinks the country's president, who has been evacuated from the flooded Washington D.C. to his "Texas ranch" (wink, wink), is an "evil jerk," she hunkers down in her home waiting to be bailed out by the government that he heads; failing that, she will starve, or die of disease. If this happens to you, make sure to be entirely selfish while you're waiting for government handouts (while simultaneously despising the hand that feeds you). What sort of message is this for teens, or anyone else?
The Anti-Heinlein October 21, 2007
20 out of 36 found this review helpful
This is the diary of a teen-aged girl, kept when a meteor hits the moon, moves it closer to earth, and life turns really, really gross. Miranda has moods and writes in her diary, her divorced Mom buys up all the food in town, her brothers chop down trees, and everybody else dies.
A typical teen-diary novel, this has been accused of being Anti-Christian, anti-conservative, and anti-science. I'll examine these one by one...
ANTI-CHRISTIAN: Miranda's friend Megan and her pastor are portrayed as religious fanatics and hypocrits. No other characters in the book show any knowledge, interest, or awareness of religion. Pretty one-sided. Had a Jewish girl and her rabbi been portrayed in this way, the book would have been unpublishable. GUILTY.
ANTI-CONSERVATIVE: The government should have know and done something. The President and his friends have all the food in Texas. Everybody with a gun is bad. Pretty liberal stuff. Although I kept thinking that Mom was supposed to be representing the hypocricy of liberalism -- a big talker who when push comes to shove, hordes food and gas, refuses to help her neighbors, and who's survival strategy ends up being to hole up until the government she despises rescues her and starts delivering welfare Not sure what auther Pfeffer's irony level is, though. Assume GUILTY. ((Update: Checked her web-page. Definately GUILTY))
ANTI-SCIENCE: I know this is a teenage girl's diary, and everyone knows, "girls aren't good at science and math stuff," but this is science fiction, and that kind of would demand some attempt at explanation. Some character to try and explain the events -- make college brother a science major instead of a philosphy student (snicker), make Mom's doctor boyfriend take guesses, have there be a radio station that only comes in every once in a while, or have Miranda find a fraky old book from the 1960s in the attic.
The climate science is just "one damn thing after another" with no real explanation of what might be happening when and why. It takes electricty to pump water out of a well, because we haven't built houses with hand pumps in nearly a century. If gasoline is $12 a gallon, and limited to two gallons per customer, is your natural gas provider going to keep your natural gas coming free for another three months? If all the stores and the police department are closed, is the library going to be open? If people are so desperate they'd steal wood stacked outside a house, might not some people be desperate enough to break into a house of a food- horder where there are two women and no guns? The logic train has left the station on this one: GUILTY.
Frankly, I blame the editors on this one. A good idea, executed fairly well, but decent editing and a rewrite would have made it superior. Blame the editors because they either shared the same world view (those darn Christians and Republicans), didn't care (just a kids book), or just didn't know enough ("Science and Math are Hard!".
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