Life As We Knew It is your classic sort-of apocalypse novel. Its main character is Miranda, a
16/17-year-old girl, who must get through the array of extreme hardships brought upon by
nature with her family when a large asteroid strikes the moon and alters its orbit. To give you the
abridged version of the rest of this review, I think that the book was honestly average overall.
The mood created by the book is mostly a bleak and depressing one, as can expected from a
book about a, well, apocalypse. That’s not the issue with the book, though. The issue is the
overall structure of the book, which is like a “this-happened, then this, and then this.” Of course,
most books to make logical sense must be in chronological order, but the book makes readers
so aware of this passage of time and sequence of events that it feels dull. Good books and
good authors, in my opinion, make the transitions throughout the story feel almost unnoticeable.
Now, not adhering to the structure Pfeffer chose for the book was difficult because the entire
novel is essentially Miranda’s diary entries describing what occurs throughout the apocalypse,
but I felt the organization of the book to make the book a bit dry.
Life as We Knew It is definitely not your sort-of moving and evocative novel like Where the
Crawdads Sing. It’s not so much that the characters are hard to relate to in their situation but
more that the novel doesn’t incorporate enough meaningful descriptions of them throughout the
book to truly get to know who they are. To Pfeffer’s credit, though, I did end up reading the entire
thing, so I guess there was some appealing aspect of the book. The main reason, I think, is that
the book runs on readers’ curiosity by making them ask questions like, “When, if at all, does the
apocalypse end?” and “Will Miranda and her family survive the next day?”
The book, and this isn’t necessarily a negative or positive aspect of it, makes you panic a bit. To
elaborate, the novel makes you think about things such as the fragility of life and how our lives
and society can truly be destroyed at any point in time. It may honestly make you want to start
stockpiling canned food and other supplies in your basement, so do be warned. Before the end
of humanity or a massive disaster upon it actually occurs, though, Life as We Knew It gives you a
semi/sort-of accurate look at how it may play out. Further, if you end up enjoying this novel,
there’s a sequel that may be related to this one. Enjoy!
Review By ~ Andrew
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