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3.73 AVERAGE
3.73 AVERAGE
This book was wonderful! I enjoyed getting to know Miranda and experiencing the struggles alongside her. I read this with my group of seventh grade language arts students and they thoroughly enjoyed it as well. There is some cursing in the novel, but not enough to warrant abandoning it. I liked how the ending set the reader up for a sequel...which I can’t wait to get my hands on!
I just really don't like books written in diary form. I couldn't get through it...I thought it was a really great story idea, though. Wish I could've gotten over my dislike of the writing style, but I just couldn't.
I found this book a quick and easy read. What I liked about this book is that it is an end of the world, disaster story where the main character; Miranda and her family, sit and do very little, they just survive. What?! I hear you say. Well, there's so many stories out there where the characters are these awesome take on the world personalities but this book shows us what a silent majority under the right circumstances may do. Sit it out, wait for somebody else to do something, wait for the electricity, the food to appear, the weather to change. I mean these people sat waiting for the electricity to come on so they could switch the dishwasher (wtf??!!!), washing machine and hoover on. I just had to laugh. The dishwasher!? Sounds ridiculous but I think this showed an element of shock, an unwillingness to accept the true nature of the predicament they were in or even a lack of understanding.
It was a story about people who didn't live in the city and this allowed the author to give us a somewhat mundane version of events. I found Miranda's voice to be realistic, frustratingly so at times, yes I could imagine a teenager writing a diary like this under these circumstances. I've seen people criticising the science behind these circumstances, I'm not sure how accurate or inaccurate this is, I know the moon's positioning is quite critical to life on earth, amazingly so but I'm taking a step back from that. I'd definitely read another Pfeffer book based on this one.
It was a story about people who didn't live in the city and this allowed the author to give us a somewhat mundane version of events. I found Miranda's voice to be realistic, frustratingly so at times, yes I could imagine a teenager writing a diary like this under these circumstances. I've seen people criticising the science behind these circumstances, I'm not sure how accurate or inaccurate this is, I know the moon's positioning is quite critical to life on earth, amazingly so but I'm taking a step back from that. I'd definitely read another Pfeffer book based on this one.
dark
emotional
sad
tense
medium-paced
Pfeffer did an excellent job of writing a science-fiction tale of perseverance. It is just sad there are more books in this series so I wonder if it just gets worse or becomes a story of redemption. I think her characterization of Miranda, the teenager girl was pretty accurate, not quite an adult, but still a child at heart. The novel is told through journal entries and your heart wrenches each time the situation gets worse. I would not suggest reading this story during a snowstorm (like I did) because it just adds to your feeling of being alone and stranded. It does help if you have a 23-month old who is constantly hitting you on the back and saying, "you okay? you okay?"
The whole family listened to this one on a family road trip on audiobook. Miranda came off as a bit immature and whiney, but we liked the premise.
emotional
tense
medium-paced
this actually has such a happy ending compared to the dead and the gone
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⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
This is one of those books that I was always curious about but never got around to reading. Well, I finally got around to reading it. And putting aside the scientific aspects of it, I found it to be a pretty decent survival novel. It depicted the hopelessness, hunger, isolation, claustrophobia and uncertainty of survival fairly well. I don't particularly mind that not much happened over the course of the novel.
It can seem dull and boring at times, but I've grown up reading survival novels like Island of the Blue Dolphin, Hatchet, Sign of the Beaver and of course the classic Robinson Crusoe. There's a lot of downtime where the character is just surviving: searching for food, making weapons, longing for companions, et cetera. I'm not suggesting this novel is anywhere close to those classics, but this book did do well on the survival aspect.
What it didn't do well was in the science aspect. Maybe if this was in some alien world, all the things that happened could be excused. But since it happened on Earth, it was much harder to ignore. I found this disaster impossible to believe. Even something as mundane as the homework assignments weirdly focusing on the moon felt unbelievable to me. I've lived through historic moments and aside from watching on television, no teacher felt they had to assign homework based on it. I won't go into the asteroid knocking into the moon and all that happened, as I am admittedly not the most authoritative on the subject. I will say that the scenario seemed like it could never actually happen, and that is a lack when you're dealing in survival stories.
But that wasn't my only issue. I honestly did not like how certain people and organizations were portrayed in this novel. Mentioning George W. made this book dated, and the mother's obvious distaste for him and Fox News gave a certain tone. I was also unhappy with how Christians were handled in this novel. It seemed very unpleasant and made them out to be delusional, brainwashed or greedy. I don't want to put too much on my own personal bias on this, but it honestly seems to me like the author did.
Honestly, I think that if the political and religious biases were kept out, or at least looked at more fairly, then I would have enjoyed the book a bit more. Again, I would have to ignore the lack of scientific accuracy, but I still would have enjoyed it more.
It can seem dull and boring at times, but I've grown up reading survival novels like Island of the Blue Dolphin, Hatchet, Sign of the Beaver and of course the classic Robinson Crusoe. There's a lot of downtime where the character is just surviving: searching for food, making weapons, longing for companions, et cetera. I'm not suggesting this novel is anywhere close to those classics, but this book did do well on the survival aspect.
What it didn't do well was in the science aspect. Maybe if this was in some alien world, all the things that happened could be excused. But since it happened on Earth, it was much harder to ignore. I found this disaster impossible to believe. Even something as mundane as the homework assignments weirdly focusing on the moon felt unbelievable to me. I've lived through historic moments and aside from watching on television, no teacher felt they had to assign homework based on it. I won't go into the asteroid knocking into the moon and all that happened, as I am admittedly not the most authoritative on the subject. I will say that the scenario seemed like it could never actually happen, and that is a lack when you're dealing in survival stories.
But that wasn't my only issue. I honestly did not like how certain people and organizations were portrayed in this novel. Mentioning George W. made this book dated, and the mother's obvious distaste for him and Fox News gave a certain tone. I was also unhappy with how Christians were handled in this novel. It seemed very unpleasant and made them out to be delusional, brainwashed or greedy. I don't want to put too much on my own personal bias on this, but it honestly seems to me like the author did.
Honestly, I think that if the political and religious biases were kept out, or at least looked at more fairly, then I would have enjoyed the book a bit more. Again, I would have to ignore the lack of scientific accuracy, but I still would have enjoyed it more.
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No