Life as We Knew It by Susan Beth Pfeffer

Life as We Knew It (Last Survivors, #1)

by Susan Beth Pfeffer

I guess I always felt even if the world came to an end, McDonald's still would be open.

High school sophomore Miranda's disbelief turns to fear in a split second when an asteroid knocks the moon closer to Earth, like "one marble hits another." The result is catastrophic. How can her family prepare for the future when worldwide tsunamis are wiping out the coasts, earthquakes are rocking the continents, and volcanic ash is blocking out the sun? As August turns dark and wintery in northeastern Pennsylvania, 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 a year's worth of journal entries, this heart-pounding story chronicles Miranda's struggle to hold on to the most important resource of all--hope--in an increasingly desperate and unfamiliar world. An extraordinary series debut!

Susan Beth Pfeffer has written several companion novels to Life As We Knew It, including The Dead and the Gone, This World We Live In, and The Shade of the Moon.

Reviewed by nitzan_schwarz on

5 of 5 stars

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4.5 stars

I honestly loved this so much. Most dystopias start with the world already ravaged and ruined, but not this one. This one gives you a glimpse of normal life and then crushes it all to bits and pieces as it describes the drastic and dramatic decline and one family's struggle to survive it through the eyes of Miranda.

This book is slow, but in no point did I get bored. I was riveted, and so connected to the characters and their stories that I teared up, especially in the good times, because I could literally feel how precious they were to these people.

This book does make one want to stock on food and batteries and savor every pint of ice cream and chocolate. The scariest part is that as I was reading on earthquakes in the book, there were all the earthquakes in Europe and I swear this book made me so paranoid for a moment I thought I might be living in it and the end of the world (as we know it) is coming.

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Reading updates

  • Started reading
  • 1 November, 2016: Finished reading
  • 1 November, 2016: Reviewed