Life as We Knew It

Starred review from October 16, 2006
When an asteroid collides with the moon, causing natural disasters—tidal waves, volcanoes, earthquakes and climate changes—on Earth, life as 16-year-old Miranda knows it will never be the same. Suddenly, things she has taken for granted—electricity, news from the outside world and three square meals a day—are a thing of the past. Thanks to her mother's foresight and preparedness, Miranda and her two brothers are better off than many families in their Pennsylvania community. They have a pantry filled with canned goods and plenty of logs to fuel their wood-burning stove. Yet their situation becomes more critical as other unexpected disasters arise. The book may be lengthy, but most readers will find it absorbing from first page to last. This survival tale by the author of The Year Without Michael
celebrates the fortitude and resourcefulness of human beings during critical times. The story unfolds through Miranda's journal entries, from May, when the asteroid strikes, to the following March. Though the entries paint a grim picture of a rapidly shrinking civilization ("I write stuff down in here and I don't read it. Things are bad enough without having to remind myself of just how bad things are," she explains), her words also evoke a strain of hope which proves to be her most essential survival tool. Miranda's changing priorities, undying love for her family and heightened appreciation of simple pleasures will likely provoke discussion and inspire gratitude for life as we know it now. Ages 12-up.

October 1, 2006
Gr 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, Mirandas 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 Mirandas 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"

Copyright 2006 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from September 1, 2006
A meteor is going to hit the moon, and 16-year-old Miranda, like the rest of her family and neighbors in rural Pennsylvania, intends to watch it from the comfort of a lawn chair in her yard. But the event is not the benign impact predicted. The moon is knocked closer to Earth, setting off a chain of horrific occurrences: tsunamis, earthquakes, and, later, volcanic eruptions that disrupt life across the planet. Written in the form of Miranda's diary, this disquieting and involving story depicts one family's struggle to survive in a world where food, warmth, and well-being disappear in the blink of an eye. As life goes from bad to worse, Miranda struggles to find a way to survive both mentally and physically, discovering strength in her family members and herself. This novel will inevitably be compared to Meg Rosoff's Printz Award Book, " How I Live Now" (2004). Pfeffer doesn't write with Rosoff's startling eloquence, and her setup is not as smooth (Why don't scientists predict the possibility of this outcome?). But Miranda and her family are much more familiar than Rosoff's characters, and readers will respond to the authenticity and immediacy of their plight. Each page is filled with events both wearying and terrifying and infused with honest emotions. Pfeffer brings cataclysmic tragedy very close.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2006, American Library Association.)

Starred review from December 11, 2006
Bauer proves the perfect choice as narrator for this excellent coming-of-age novel. Miranda is a normal 16-year-old girl whose main concerns in life are schoolwork, swim meets and whether or not she will be asked to the prom. But Miranda's world is literally ripped apart when an asteroid hits the moon, shifts it from its orbit and throws the earth into chaos. Millions die due to tsunamis and earthquakes. Millions more perish because of an early, devastatingly cold winter, brought about by ash thrown into the atmosphere by hundreds of volcanic eruptions. The story, told through a series of entries in Miranda's journal, chronicles the heroine's and her family's efforts to survive in a world where staying warm and having enough to eat and drink becomes the day-to-day priority. Bauer skillfully captures Miranda's adolescent angst with all its emotional highs and lows. By keeping the narration completely in Miranda's voice, using only slight differences in inflection to denote other characters, Bauer manages to convey the sense of Miranda herself reading her most intimate thoughts to listeners. It is a fine performance that only enhances Pfeffer's thoughtful, heart-wrenching novel. Ages 12-up.

January 1, 2007
In this taut survival story, an asteroid hits the moon, knocking it closer toward Earth, which results in cataclysmic natural disasters. Sixteen-year-old Miranda's journal entries provide a riveting account of how lack of information and resources, and, subsequently, loss of hope for the future shrink her world. Against mounting dismal conditions, her family's drawing together to find meaning in their altered lives is all the more triumphant.

(Copyright 2007 by The Horn Book, Incorporated, Boston. All rights reserved.)