Book Review | Book Chatter

Life As We Knew It
By Susan Beth Pfeffer
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
October 2006
352pp

Here’s the blurb from the publisher:

Miranda’s disbelief turns to fear in a split second when a meteor knocks the moon closer to the earth. How should her family prepare for the future when worldwide tsunamis wipe out the coasts, earthquakes rock the continents, and volcanic ash blocks out the sun? As summer turns to Arctic winter, Miranda, her two brothers, and their mother retreat to the unexpected safe haven of their sunroom, where they subsist on stockpiled food and limited water in the warmth of a wood-burning stove.

Told in journal entries, this is the heart-pounding story of Miranda’s struggle to hold on to the most important resource of all—hope—in an increasingly desperate and unfamiliar world.

The Short of It:

After reading just a few pages, you won’t be able to put this one down. It’s scary at times but hopeful too.

The Rest of It:

I have read a lot of books about the end of the world. I’m not a morbid person but deep, deep down I do believe that something horrible could happen to the world as we know it. Fires, earthquakes, tsunamis (oh my!)…I had to toss that in there to lighten it up a bit. Anyway, with the weird weather patterns and the fear of a pandemic, Life As We Knew It is not all that farfetched. Really.

After the moon’s position is compromised by a meteor hit, Miranda and her family do their best to survive in a world that is completely different from what they’re used to. There are lots of things that I liked about this novel so I thought I’d stray from my usual format and make a list:

Miranda, at age 16, is very much a sixteen-year-old but emotionally strong when she needs to be.
Miranda’s mom is a sensible woman. I’ve read so many of these types of books where the mom is just the stereotypical “mom” and lacks any kind of common sense. Not the case here.
The family works together as a unit and it’s believable.
The other characters are actually important to the story and not just there to create conflict.
Pfeffer paints a realistic picture of what could happen given such a catastrophe. These characters are hungry and you feel it. As Miranda longs for a hot shower, you are reminded of how wonderful hot water can be. I mentioned above that it’s scary at times, scary as in “This could happen!”
Even though the subject matter is grim, there is a strong sense of hope throughout the story. This is incredibly hard to do but Pfeffer does it effortlessly.
Since this is a young adult book, I could easily see a teenager reading this and really thinking about how good they have it. As an adult, I know I spent many moments pondering what was on the page.

I was pleasantly surprised by this book. I expected it to be a page-turner, but I didn’t expect to care about the characters as much as I did and I didn’t expect to think about it days after reading it.

Life As We Knew It is book one in a series. The Dead and the Gone is book two and book three, The World We Live In comes out in April!

Source: Borrowed

Case Histories
By Kate Atkinson
Little Brown and Company
October 2005
336pp

Here’s the blurb from the publisher:

A breathtaking story of families divided, love lost and found, and the mysteries of fate.

Case One: Olivia Land, youngest and most beloved of the Land girls, goes missing in the night and is never seen again. Thirty years later, two of her surviving sisters unearth a shocking clue to Olivia’s disappearance among the clutter of their childhood home. . .

Case Two: Theo delights in his daughter Laura’s wit, effortless beauty, and selfless love. But her first day as an associate in his law firm is also the day when Theo’s world turns upside down. . .

Case Three: Michelle looks around one day and finds herself trapped in a hell of her own making. A very needy baby and a very demanding husband make her every waking moment a reminder that somewhere, somehow, she’d made a grave mistake and would spend the rest of her life paying for it–until a fit of rage creates a grisly, bloody escape.

As Private Detective Jackson Brodie investigates all three cases, startling connections and discoveries emerge. Inextricably caught up in his clients grief, joy, and desire, Jackson finds their unshakable need for resolution very much like his own.

*No Spoilers*

The Short of It:

At first glance, Case Histories appears to be a collection of stand-alone stories but as the novel unfolds, they come together to form a very different kind of mystery.

The Rest of It:

Often, I find mysteries to be a bit predictable in nature. For this reason, I typically steer clear of them. However, my book club picked Case Histories for this month and although it’s definitely a mystery, it’s sort of veiled in its delivery. Meaning, it doesn’t hit you over the head with its mysterious-ness.

Each case is, well…a tad shocking. Shocking in that these characters tend to think out loud and their observations and feelings over a particular person, place or thing are so honest that at times, you suck in a breath and say, “Wow.”

I believe the idea was to have the stories alternate, and then eventually mesh into one. This happens, but rather loosely. You aren’t given all the details, but given enough to know what happens by the end of the novel. Although the result was a tad predictable, what happens within each case, is not.

In the end, I’m not sure I liked how the cases came together. I almost like them better as stand-alone stories. As I read each case, I was left wondering about the people within them. As horrible as some of these characters are, I could easily relate to them. But given the entire situation, I lost the ability to relate to them. Well, some of them.

As you can see, this review is a collection of my rambling thoughts because this reading experience left me rather antsy. It wasn’t a short story collection but in my opinion it didn’t really read like a novel either.

This was my first experience with Atkinson and I found her characters to be deeply conflicted (just the way I like them) but the format left me wanting more. Atkinson has a new novel out, When Will There Be Good News? Has anyone read it?

My book club meets later this week so I’ll share their thoughts in my Sunday Salon post.

Source: Purchased.

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