Life As We Knew It

The first time I read Life As We Knew It by Susan Beth Pfeffer was last fall--late October, early November--it was not "winter" yet, but it was after the first frost. I remember curling up in bed and getting colder, and colder, and hungrier and hungrier. I read it at night. In one sitting. And of course, I dreamed about being cold, hungry, and afraid. And all throughout the next day, I kept thinking about their frantic grocery store trip. Of course, if you HAVEN'T read Life As We Knew It you haven't the foggiest idea of what I'm talking about. You can read my first review here.

Imagine waking up one day to find that everything had changed practically over night. All over the world massive destruction due to one natural disaster after another. And what if there was no way to turn back the clock. To wake up knowing that each day will be worse than the one before. No electricity. No phone service. No gas or oil. Limited food supplies. What is there left to hope for? How would you live your last days?

Meet Miranda your personal guide through this terrifying adventure.

The second time I "read" it, I listened to it on audio book. The narrator is Emily Bauer and I just have to say she did an incredible job giving Miranda a voice. From the beginning chapters where Miranda is your typical teen--a bit shallow, a bit whiny, a bit superficial--to the earth-shattering, life-changing depths that Miranda takes on as her character changes day by day, hour by hour. I thought the text was haunting to read, but it is even more haunting to listen to the story unfold. Emily Bauer was believable as 'Miranda' from beginning to end. That isn't always the case with audiobooks. Typically, I don't bother with audiobooks. For one thing, I read very fast. Audio just slows me down. (Not that I'm following along with a book, like those kiddie records waiting for the bell to ding.) But I am so glad that I made an exception for Life As We Knew It. It was beautifully, beautifully done. It was slower, but in some ways that made it even better. The words were able to sink in fully. The situations, the circumstances, the characters seemed to resonate more with time. Since it took about a week--maybe a week and a half--to listen to the seven discs (or is six???), I found myself lost in the story...thinking about the characters all the time. It was more emotional, more intense. Perhaps it has something to do with the fact that this was my second time to read it. The first time I was too concerned about finding out what happened, too caught up in the plot to really savor each and every page fully.

Anyway, I can't recommend this one highly enough!!! And there will be a companion novel to Life As We Knew It. So we can get even more perspectives on this terrifying catastrophe.

Hint: If you want to read this one yourself, you should definitely check out her blog. Especially the post that says "Another One Dusts the Byte"

http://susanbethpfeffer.blogspot.com/