Life As We Knew It (Last Survivors #1)

If you have ever needed external motivation to beef up your food storage......here it is.  It heightened my naturally high anxiety level to 'frantic'.  I plan to begin stock piling wood, asprin, batteries, fuel, canned fruit and veggies, and canned chicken, like nobody's business.  And I am beginning to think that my vaulted ceiling was a mistake.  It won't hold in enough heat when the ash comes.  I'm getting ahead of myself.....

Teenager Miranda is your run of the mill girl.  She worries about blog stalking her Olympic crush. She's a little shallow. She wants less homework and worries about her changing friendships.  Then a once a life time meteor collision with the moon goes from block party atmosphere to apocalyptic.  The moon is pushed closer to the Earth causing it's gravitation to spur one natural disaster after another.  No longer is Miranda worried about which sport to play or the fact that she is growing apart from her childhood friends.  Survival is at the forefront.  Sacrifice, starvation, desolation, and death quickly take the place of free spirited American life.  Miranda captures it all in journal entries.

This is a superb work of post-apocalyptic fiction.  It is so believeable that you can't decide whether to keep reading or start hoarding.  It is very simply written and a tad slow at the beginning.  The simplicity makes it scarier on one hand.  The sense of desperation and grueling day to day survival is vivid.  And then sometimes I felt like the simplicity also took away.  I didn't get the sense of urgency that I think would exist during a crisis.  That took it down a point for me.  Also, I am now realizing......hello! Where was your weapon stock pile? How were they going to defend their wood, asprin, and canned chicken for Pete's sake. That part is so unrealistic I can't believe I forgot it was one of the point deductors. And I just have to put in my 2 cents....I realize the author can write any old thing she wants and if I were to author a book I could splatter my opinions everywhere....but I didn't like the Conservative slamming, from President bashing (which granted I would do if the President in the book I wrote were a so Liberal he was suffocating) to making Christians look like Kool-Aid sipping nut jobs. I think I may have been more forgiving if this book wasn't aimed at a younger audience. Just my opinion.



Rating 4
Rating PG 13  Crisis situations, death, destruction, scarey situations, talk of promiscuity.