Reviews with content warning for Death - Life As We Knew It

I read this book a long time ago, and it’s stuck with me since my first read through. Reading it again is just as heart-wrenching, especially on the heels of the COVID pandemic.

I mourn for Miranda and the way she had to grow up too fast, and take on responsibility that no 16 year old should do.

From giving up meals for her younger brother to finding Mrs. Nesbitt dead and carrying out her last wishes, Miranda is constantly faced with problems many of us only confront in our nightmares.

This dystopian novel is much more grounded in reality than some of its other YA counterparts. A global, environmental disaster that hit so suddenly, in stark contrast to the creeping threat of climate change, leaves you wondering if you could survive the apocalypse at 16.

Under it all, Life as we Knew it is a story about family, hope, survival, and growing up. It’s dark and desperate but also underscores the little things that make life worth living.

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ericadawson's review

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challenging dark emotional hopeful sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.75

As anxiety-inducing as apocalypse and post-apocalypse stories tend to be for me, I enjoyed this.

Miranda is a 16-year-old girl who documents how much her life changes across the span of one year when a meteor (or asteroid) hits the moon. She's young--a child--and there are definitely moments where she's immature, but she's not childish in a grating or melodramatic way. She's insightful and really toughens up by the end of the book. I loved how the relationship with her mom was portrayed, although I wish it had remained as much a focus by the end of the book as it was in the beginning. My only real gripe was with her mom's insistence that the entire family slowly sacrifice themselves for Johnny--even after he got sick and Miranda was the only (mostly) healthy one. I can't quite pin why it doesn't sit right with me, but it's not a plot point I really enjoyed, and I wished that part of Miranda's maturation involved her questioning her mother on that.

Otherwise, the plot, pacing, and voice were all fine! The author uses more than just the weather and outside events to show the steady decline of Miranda's home--her family talks less, and more of her writing is dedicated to introspection or being physically outside as a means of escape. She dreams less, has more fantasies, but also is more cynical as the world literally bleaches of color.

I'll be adding the sequel to my TBR.

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authorannafaundez's review against another edition

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emotional reflective tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

I woke up last week remembering a book I’d enjoyed when I was in middle school. Half asleep and still in pajamas, I looked it up after spending a while remembering the title. Then I realized that book had actually been part of a series! Being who I am, I ordered the series with glee and devoured the book I remembered in a single day.

Now, I’ve always been one for disaster movies: 2012, The Day After Tomorrow, and Poseidon were a few of my favorites. It didn’t occur to me until I was waiting for my newest box set to arrive that I’d obviously like books in the same vein—and clearly had.

I wasn’t disappointed. However, if you’re looking for an action-packed YA novel with heart-stopping scenes, this is not the book for you. Life as We Knew It is a drama. It focuses heavily on the day-to-day emotional impacts of the theoretical (and sometimes outright fantastical) events that occur in the beginning chapters. You’ll have adventure; just not the action-based kind. If I had to compare it to an adult novel, I’d choose Cormac McCarthy’s The Road.

Your narrator is a 16-year-old girl. Don’t expect logical or concise decisions to be made at all times. Expect high emotional responses, grieving for a life-that-was or could have been, rebelliousness, selfishness, and a craving for instant gratification. Even if you aren’t a teenager anymore and have learned to regulate these traits and emotions in yourself, you can empathize.

Life as We Knew It tells its story at a slant. Life for the characters doesn’t drastically change following the events with the moon. Life erodes among bursts of activity—kind of like a twitch after death. You get to experience the collapse of society at a distance! The setting is somewhere in northeastern Pennsylvania in the United States: a small town in the middle-of-nowhere. At first, things are okay enough. Kids still go to school and adults still go to work. Then there’s the obligatory panic buying when news of the disasters trickle in. Electrical failures, strange weather, and lists of the dead.

Do keep in mind that Life as We Knew It is still young adult fiction. It is meant for twelve and thirteen-year-olds at the very least. You won’t find all the gruesome detail concerning bodies within these pages. You won’t find cannibalism or kidnapping. Yes, some of the book is still unsettling—I certainly remember being unsettled when I first read it as a kid—but, ultimately, you get a happy ending. More or less. You get to keep hope.

I did want to touch on one more aspect: religion in Life as We Knew It. I’ll preface this section with the fact that I, myself, am not religious. Spiritual, sure. But organized religion is not for me. With that in mind, I think Pfeffer’s choice to only show the radicalized religious odd. Most of the beliefs found in Life as We Knew It come from a single source: a peer, and friend, of the narrator. This friend is not unkind or particularly judging, but she has clearly been manipulated into believing a fair few unhealthy and dangerous ideas at an impressionable point in her life. You can read for yourself what happens to her, but the real kicker is the single scene where the narrator meets the pastor of this group of people. He is shown to be unkind, aloof, and self-righteous—not that you like him before meeting him for a moment anyway. And this is all fine. My issue comes in with this being the only religious group the book touches on. I’d have liked to see a bit more balance. However, it does provide some darker realities to reflect on. In short, I didn’t hate it, but I think it could have been handled as part of the narrative a bit better.

Since I did buy the series, I do plan to finish the whole thing before moving on to other books. So next time shall be Pfeffer’s companion book to this one, The Dead and the Gone.

~ Anna

For more great book reviews, please visit: https://annafaundez.com/blog

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lovelymisanthrope's review

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adventurous challenging dark hopeful sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

I read this book when I was younger (maybe seventh grade) and during the pandemic, I remembered reading this and enjoying it (a book about a "new normal" written over a decade ago, yes please!). When I looked into getting a copy to reread it, I discovered this book is actually part of a series that I did not know existed! I have slowly collected all four books, and finally did my reread of this title.
"Life As We Knew It" is told in a series of journal entries from high schooler Miranda. Miranda is from a small town in Pennsylvania, where she lives with her older brother (who is away at college), younger brother, and mom. Her father has a new wife who is expecting her first child soon. Because of all the climate problems created by humanity, an asteroid is scheduled to hit the moon, and it is so big that it should be visible to the naked eye. The entire world is excited to witness such an incredible event, but no one was expecting the fallout that would ensue.
The moon controls so much on planet Earth, so when an asteroid hits the moon and moves it closer to Earth, life is changed forever. I loved seeing this post-apocalyptic-esque story unfold. The population is initially panicked, and everyone is buying everything they can. But, the story quickly delves into despair when no one has electricity, access to food and water, and the temperatures start rapidly dropping. Miranda has a strained relationship with her mom to begin with and being forced into such close proximity really tests their patience for each other. Miranda is just a young girl who was worried about finals and who she will go to prom with, and now she has to worry about survival.
There are definitely some references in this book that age it, but overall, I enjoyed this story as much as I did when I was younger.

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