Life as We Knew It

Pfeffer, Susan. Life as We Knew It. Harcourt Children, 2006. 

An asteroid hits the moon and pushes it closer to Earth. Disaster follows: tidal waves are HUGE and drown out much of the earth's coastline; earthquakes are happening everywhere; dormant volcanoes have become active. Miranda is 16, and her journal entries sound very much like a typical 16-year old's. Her only observation about the eminent asteroid crash is that she has too much moon-related homework; after the moon incident, she frets that her school has cancelled this year's prom.Things get worse for Miranda's family, and for everyone else. Electricity is spotty. Food is hard to come by. And the temperature is dropping. Will they be able to survive?

At first I wondered if I'd make it through this book; if Miranda spent the entire book obsessing over prom, I knew I'd regret my decision to read it. Then, when it seemed like maybe she would realize that their situation was more dire than the lack of an internet connection, I worried that the end of the book would read, "And then my family died, and I ate them. And the cat." [Actually, I'm surprised that they didn't eat the cat; he survived to the end of the book.]

But the book ended on a hopeful note, so it was worth the read. I enjoyed Ashfall more than this book, since the main characters there are more concerned with their survival, and the catastrophic climate changes associated with a supervolcano seemed more realistic, but this was still a good book.

I just noticed on Amazon that this is book one in a four-book series. Probably I won't be reading the rest of them, although if I were at a library with patrons who read all things dystopia, I'd be sure to keep this series on the shelf.