Jen reviews Life As We Knew It by Susan Beth Pfeffer this week. She wonders whether it really is “just a coincidence that these books keep throwing themselves at me.” By “these books,” she means books that cause you to reevaluate your life priorities and in light of the current economic situation, that’s perhaps something about which we should all be thinking.
Maybe it is not just a coincidence that these books keep throwing themselves at me. The powers that be must really want me to pontificate endlessly about appreciating the important things in life, dealing with the non-crucial, and learning the difference. Maybe they are trying to tell mesomething and you are just along for the ride.
Life As We Knew It is about a catastrophic, orbital anomaly that throws the moon out of whack upsetting the delicate balance of our planet. The tides revolt, ash covers the sky, temperatures plummet and millions die.
Society at large is broken down to the bare bones. Your family will keep you alive. You will keep you alive.
No help. That’s it.
Miranda, a teenage girl* lives in Pennsylvania with her Mother and two brothers. Her divorced Dad and his new pregnant wife pass through. A close neighbor is on the scene and a few friends, but her world keeps getting smaller and smaller. As supplies dwindle to practical extinction, as gas prices soar and then it disappears, as town support vanishes, Miranda’s family learns to support itself.
There is no one and nothing else on which they can rely. Is the prom important? Is homework? No.
Shelter is. Food is. Immediate family is.
Nothing else.
Like Laura Ingalls, World Without End, and the myriad of other books I have reviewed in this context, this is about changing your priorities. Our present financial circumstances might be less extreme but it is all relative. One man’s joy is another man’s burden.
The book is a good lesson, as well as a good story, in strength. Man is capable of amazing acts of self-preservation and empathy.
Miranda must balance the needs of self against the needs of her family. Everything must be savored and appreciated, most of all the love they have for one another that ultimately is the reason for living.
When I worry about bills, and schools, and relationships, what I … what we … need to remember is that very few of these issues are truly important. Figure out what is first.
Take care of yourself and your family and those who can not help themselves. Be kind and compassionate. You need food and shelter. You need love and safety.
A new Mercedes might seem critical but you know it isn’t. (Give it to me if you just have to buy one.)
I know I am starting to sound like little Mary Sunshine, but the older I get and the more crisis I live through, the stronger and more focused I get. Life As We Knew It will remind us how it’s done.
* it is technically a young adult book but that has never stopped me before and it makes no difference. I also just finished the sequel The Dead and The Gone, which tells the same story through a different set of characters who survive the catastrophe in NYC. Equally good.