{"id":79,"date":"2008-02-26T23:20:25","date_gmt":"2008-02-27T03:20:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/2008\/02\/26\/review-of-life-as-we-knew-it-by-susan-beth-pfeffer\/"},"modified":"2008-02-29T23:21:40","modified_gmt":"2008-03-01T03:21:41","slug":"review-of-life-as-we-knew-it-by-susan-beth-pfeffer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/?p=79","title":{"rendered":"Review of Life As We Knew It, by Susan Beth Pfeffer"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"life_as_we_knew_it.jpg\"\u00a0<\/font><\/p>\n

Life As We Knew It, by Susan Beth Pfeffer<\/font><\/p>\n

Harcourt, Orlando, 2006.\u00a0 337 pages.<\/font><\/p>\n

\u201cBut the moon wasn\u2019t a half moon anymore.\u00a0 It was tilted and wrong and a three-quarter moon and it got larger, way larger, large like a moon rising on the horizon, only it wasn\u2019t rising.\u00a0 It was smack in the middle of the sky, way too big, way too visible.\u00a0 You could see details on the craters even without the binoculars that before I\u2019d seen with Matt\u2019s telescope.\u201d<\/font><\/p>\n

Life As We<\/em> Knew It<\/em> is gripping, dramatic, and well-written.\u00a0 I\u2019m afraid it\u2019s also horribly depressing.<\/font><\/p>\n

Years ago, I saw an episode of James Burke\u2019s Connections<\/em> show where he talked about what would happen if we lost electricity and other modern conveniences.\u00a0 Would we even know how to grow food?\u00a0 How to milk cows or slaughter chickens?\u00a0 Would we be able to survive?<\/font><\/p>\n

I\u00a0found it interesting that Miranda\u2019s family, aside from an attempt at growing vegetables, were still pretty much at the mercy of what they could purchase to eat.\u00a0 They had to live in hope that the electricity would come back some day.\u00a0 And I got depressed realizing I wouldn\u2019t do much better!<\/font><\/p>\n

This book would make for lively discussion in a book group.\u00a0 How would you respond to such a situation?\u00a0 I liked it that it was narrated by a high school student\u2014because we can all understand how much that student would prefer a normal life and normal high school concerns.<\/font><\/p>\n

I\u2019m afraid I related a little too much to her single mother\u2014that probably kept me from really enjoying the book right there.\u00a0 It was too easy for me to imagine myself in that desperate situation, and wonder how I would respond.<\/font><\/p>\n

I do think that in such a situation, I\u2019d be force to turn to my faith in God\u2014so I disliked it that in this book, Miranda had a friend with a church that presented a caricature of faith in God\u2014a twisted, destructive trust, with a controlling and selfish leader at the head of the group.\u00a0 How sad if, in such a desperate situation, you had only yourselves to rely upon\u2014and hope that some day the government would get it together enough to help you survive.<\/font><\/p>\n

So, this was a well-written story, with lots of food for thought.\u00a0 But now I\u2019m going to look for something light and cheerful to read!<\/font><\/p>\n

Find this review on the main site at:<\/p>\n

www.sonderbooks.com\/Teens\/life_as_we_knew_it.html<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00a0 Life As We Knew It, by Susan Beth Pfeffer Harcourt, Orlando, 2006.\u00a0 337 pages. \u201cBut the moon wasn\u2019t a half moon anymore.\u00a0 It was tilted and wrong and a three-quarter moon and it got larger, way larger, large like a moon rising on the horizon, only it wasn\u2019t rising.\u00a0 It was smack in the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[21,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-79","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-contemporary","category-teen-fiction-review"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=79"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=79"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=79"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=79"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}