Marketing is key and this striking cover made me interested enough that I stopped to read the blurb on the back. So, for those of you hoping to be published one day, be kind to your art department. They could easily make or break you before you even leave the gate. But, anyway, back on topic.
The book follows fifteen-almost-sixteen year old Miranda Evans. It’s a diary format book which is hit and miss in my experience, but Pfeffer really pulls it off with this one. It starts in early May and follows Miranda and her family through the following year and all the disasters that befall them. And not your average everyday disasters, either. I’m talking epic world-ending disasters.
On May 18th, a huge, dense asteroid struck the moon. While the strike was expected (as in, people saw it coming) astronomers underestimated the mass and the impact on the moon’s orbit. The force of the blow knocks the moon closer to earth, and that is really the beginning of the end. Tsunamis, massive tidal changes, earthquakes, and volcanoes completely change the landscape and make every moment of every day a struggle for survival.
Life As We Knew It is reminiscent of many other doomsday books (Alas, Babylon comes to mind), but it’s missing one thing those other books always carry–human guilt. This disaster and everything that spawns from it is beyond human control. The earth is not rejecting its evilest of inhabitants and aliens are not coming down from on high to punish us for our sins. What that leaves this story with is all the trappings of environmental propaganda (Cherish what we have! Be kind to the world! Be not wasteful!) without the bitter aftertaste.
I fell in love with this family despite their failings–all of which are shown clearly through the course of the book–and I rooted for them to make it through. I found the writing engaging and thoughtful, the characters honest, and the scope of the book terrifying in its probability. All in all, it made me anxious to get my hands on Pfeffer’s companion novel The Dead and the Gone.