“Life as We Knew It”: Apocalyptic Novel Helps Teen Face Fears

Many betweeners and teens are experiencing apocalyptic nightmares and anxiety regarding the potential for the end of the world. These fears often coincide with becoming more independent and an awareness of war, turmoil and tragedy in the news.  My nephew Michael was no exception. Rather than listen to everyone pooh-poohing the notion, Michael found an exceptional teen novel entitled “Life as We Knew It” by Susan Beth Pfeffer that helped him to confront his fears and face what he believed to be a potential reality.

What follows is my nephew’s review of this first book in a three-volume series. However, Michael does feel that this book is not for all. Michael warns that, “If you are the type that like happy books, where everything always works out okay, then this isn’t for you.”

Spoiler Alert: This review contains details of the book that gives away many climactic scenes. Do not read further if you do not want to know what happens:

 

LIFE AS WE KNEW IT        

By: Susan Beth Pfeffer

Reviewed by Michael Caye (at age 11)

This amazing story is about when Miranda, Matt, Jon, Mom, and Mrs. Nesbitt lived in Pennsylvania and found themselves in a world that might have an ending.

This story begins when they heard on the news that a meteor might hit the moon and the world might end. The family went to see the big meteor and it was coming close to the earth. Mom, Miranda and Mrs. Nesbitt went to the stores and got as much food as they could because the stores were going to begin closing. The next thing that happened was that Miranda looked up in the sky and it was all gray. The cause of that was that the volcanoes were erupting everywhere, and they started to lose their electricity. Then one day Miranda, Jon and Matt went to school and there was hardly anyone there. The excuse was that all the parents wanted them to stay with them. Miranda met a boy named Dan, and they began to like each other and began dating which the mom did not like. All over the place there were people dying because they could not get the medication they needed to survive and the sadest person who died was Mrs. Nesbitt. During the days and weeks the family was doing fine and then one day it hit the moon and they all began getting sick. They could not go to the doctors because Peter the doctor died, so Miranda had to take care of them. Then Miranda went to see if they got any mail from their dad. And when she got there she saw a banner that said Food so Miranda went and the person said would you like any food? And of course Miranda said yes an they were going to give them four bags of food to them each week.

Life As We Knew It was an amazing book because I never wanted the book to end it was so good. My first reason I liked it was that there were some really scary parts that I liked one thing that was scary in the book was that the meteor was getting close to the moon, and that there was all kinds of volcanoes erupting and killing people. My second reason is that there was some really sad parts too, like when everyone started dying and Mrs. Nesbitt.