Life As We Knew It is an earnestly but unthreateningly liberal end-of-the-world as might be depicted in an ABC Afterschool Special.Īrmageddon-Lite: Keep those bodies off-screen
The science is pretty dodgy (the author admits here that she pretty much just handwaved it - "All the science in LAWKI/d&g is consequence based"), but I've learned not to expect much from modern YA science fiction, and this book is solidly aimed at Middle Americans who might not even believe in evolution, so who cares about that sciencey stuff? It's for tweens who want to experience a little frisson of dread at the thought of the world coming to an end and how that might be kind of cool because no more stupid kid brothers or Mom and Dad telling them to do homework, except they wouldn't really want that, so Pfeffer makes sure to reassure them that yes, Mom is still going to make you do homework even when the sky is falling. The volcanic eruptions result in a world blanketed by ash, resulting in poor air quality, loss of sunlight, more climactic changes, etc. The immediate effect is massive tsunamis that wipe out coastal cities around the world, followed by severe earthquakes, followed by volcanism as a large number of dormant volcanoes erupt, with the Moon's increased gravity pulling more magma towards the surface. The impact is great enough to shift the moon's orbit closer to Earth. The plot, basically, is this: an asteroid hits the moon. But I have a particular fondness for end-of-the-world stories, and Life As We Knew It (and its sequels) have gotten a fair amount of buzz, so I went ahead and plowed through it in short order, as it's a pretty light read. There aren't many things that will induce me to read a YA novel nowadays. In her journal, Miranda records the events of each desperate day, while she and her family struggle to hold on to their most priceless resource-hope. How should her family prepare for the future when worldwide tsunamis wipe out the coasts, earthquakes rock the continents, and volcanic ash blocks out the sun? As summer turns to Arctic winter, 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. Miranda's disbelief turns to fear in a split second when an asteroid knocks the moon closer to the earth.
Inverarity One-line summary: OMG! Like, the world is totally ending and it like, totally sucks!
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