Review of "Life as We Knew It"

Brittany Pickett
Around Campus Editor

   Picking up a cell phone to dial a number or flipping on a light switch to turn on the light is something I don’t think about too often when I do it. It is just part of my life; I  always seem to expect those things to work.

   In a novel I read this summer titled "Life As We Knew It," written by Susan Beth Pferrer, things as simple as turning on a light switch are no longer as simple when a meteor hits the moon, bringing it closer to earth’s orbit. This single event sets off a chain of events that changes the whole world.

Courtesy of susanbethpfeffer.blogspot.com/

   The novel is told through the journal of 16-year-old Miranda as she tells of her family struggles to survive in the life of the moon being closer to earth. 

   In the beginning, Miranda writes in her journal about what it was like before the meteor hit the moon, how that summer she was excited to go to her dad’s house, how her mom was getting on to her about her grades at school and things happening with her friends.

   The night the meteor was supposed to hit the moon, people were really excited about it. They were outside on their decks having parties, waiting for the moment when the meteor would hit the moon. Even newscasters were interviewing astronomers about the event.  After it hit, people cheered, then Miranda notes how someone screamed.  The moon was tilted a different way and it appeared bigger in the sky.

   Then cell phones went out that night for a time. Reports of flooding in Cape Cod and high tidal waves in New York were just a few things that occurred as a result of the moon being knocked closer to earth’s orbit.

   Some people started to think it was the end of the world while some tried to keep on going as if nothing ever happened.

   Some time later after the moon excitement, Miranda’s mom and her neighbor, Mrs. Nesbitt, come to pick her and her younger brother up from school early because the weather turned bad and her mom feared the worst was yet to come and they needed to prepare.

   To prepare, the family and Mrs. Nesbitt headed to the local grocery store and stocked up on canned goods, box goods, cat food, medicine, Band-Aids and anything else they might need to survive whatever was coming their way. Miranda commented that getting some of the stuff was pointless, “The world’s coming to an end, and we're fixing it with Band-Aids.”(page 24)

   As time goes on, the power and phone lines becomes unreliable and the family learns to do without it. Gas prices go up past $5 a gallon. Life as they knew it becomes forever changed. More changes were yet to come.

   Months go on through the book, weather changes, the mail still runs sometimes and people move to better places or at least that is what they hear.

   In the book, Miranda worries about what is going to happen to her and her family. She states, “There’s a lot of stuff to worry about, but I’ve given myself a holiday. I can always worry next week instead.” (page 217)

   This was one book that I could not put down. It had me thinking what if something like that were to happen? What would I do? Would I be prepared for it?

   "Life As We Knew It," may just make you realize that life as you know it could change in a blink of an eye.

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