Life As We Knew It | Susan Beth Pfeffer | Review
“I guess I always felt even if the world came to an end, McDonald's would still be open.” - Susan Beth Pfeffer, Life As We Knew ItLife As We Knew It is the first book in a series called Last Survivors by Susan Beth Pfeffer. I was really excited when I got my hands on this book because being a fan of the apocalyptic/post-apocalyptic genre I had heard a lot of things (both great and not so great things) about this book.
Life As We Knew It is a story about a girl named Miranda and how she and her family struggles with the extreme climate changes that occurs when the moon gets knocked closer to the earth by a meteor. The family struggles to survive on small rations of food, a limited water supply and and the heath from their wood-burning stove.
The story line is pretty limited to Miranda's family and their surrounding area and we never get to know what happens in the rest of the world. I guess this is an intentional choice by the author but it left me with more questions than answers. I think this is one of my main issues with the novel, while the situation Miranda's family is in is described in great detail I miss more details of a general nature. I need those details to truly absorb and believe in this story. I'm not saying that Susan Beth Pfeffer doesn't have her facts right but I wish she had shared a few more facts with the readers.
One other issue I have with the book is that it's written like a journal. It makes the language feel really simple and a bit juvenile. And I think that's a bit sad because that doesn't have to be the case with young adult literature (there's so many good examples of that).
That being said I don't think this is a bad book or uninteresting story because I did read the whole book in just a couple of days. Susan Beth Pfeffer still manages to keep my interest up through all of the 337 pages because there is a whole bunch of interesting elements that keeps the story going.
So when I rate this book I'm going to take in consideration that it's written for a much younger audience (which really isn't an excuse for using a too simple language) because I think I might have enjoyed this a bit more if I was a few years younger (maybe 10-15 years).
My final rating is 3/5 stars (based on my personal reading experience I would say it's more like 2,5 stars).
This review was written by Niina.
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