When Reality Mimics Fiction: Examining Susan Beth Pfeffer’s Novel, Life As We Knew It
By: Chayala Nachum
Tags: Disaster Recovery, Book Recommendations, Reading, Pandemic Reading, Novel

When Reality Mimics Fiction: Examining Susan Beth Pfeffer’s Novel, Life As We Knew It

It’s just another asteroid hitting the moon. That’s what sixteen-year-old Miranda thinks at first. At first she doesn’t get why everyone is so excited, even if it is the biggest asteroid to ever hit the moon.

But then, at 9:30 PM, the asteroid collides with the moon. And life as they know it changes forever.

When the asteroid hits, the moon is jolted out of its regular position in the sky, affecting the tides and causing worldwide disasters like earthquakes and volcano eruptions. Volcanic ash chokes the sky and blocks the sun, resulting in extreme temperatures. Eventually, people cannot leave their homes unless they wear masks, to protect their lungs from the dirty air. Masks…Sound familiar?

Despite its premise, Susan Beth Pfeffer’s Life As We Knew It is not your average sci-fi novel. Instead, it is a story of humanity and its survival, told through Miranda’s journal entries. We are drawn into Miranda’s world, navigating this new life she and those around her experience. Miranda is the very definition of your run of the mill American teenager, making her all the more relatable.

Immediately after the disaster, the electricity goes out everywhere. The next day, Miranda’s mom pulls her and her brothers out of school, and takes them to the grocery store. She hands each of them wads of hundred dollar bills she withdrew from the bank, and tells them to stock carts full of non perishable goods, medicine, emergency supplies, and anything else they may need. “If it turns out I’m wrong and I’ve wasted all this money,” says Miranda’s mom, “fine. I’d just as soon the world gets back to normal. But in case it takes a while, we might as well have toilet paper.”

That quote just about summed up our situation in March. At the start of the pandemic, I found myself thinking about this book, which felt eerily prophetic. Weeks before everything except essential businesses closed down in New York, people were running to the stores and buying supplies in bulk. People were hoarding food, masks, hand sanitizer, and toilet paper. I gave in to the panic too, and had a dozen water bottles lined up in my room, in addition to the cases of bottles my parents bought for the rest of the house.

There is something about disaster that makes us go into survival mode. Every man for himself. How else do you explain the toilet paper shortage? If people are sick all around you, is a two ply roll going to be your saviour? Unlikely. But that was the item that people were lining up at stores to buy.

In the first week of the shutdown, my mom had the virus, and we were out of thermometer covers. I got on my bike and rode all around town, looking in every possible store. Nada. Nothing. No covers, and no thermometers either. Last I checked, you only really need one thermometer in your house, right? But the shelves were empty.

That’s why I thought of Life As We Knew It. I first read it several years ago, and fell in love with it, so much so that I purchased a copy for myself. In March, all I could think was how eerily similar our behavior was to the people in the book. We had the opportunists, who hiked up prices of hard to find items. We had the panickers, who grabbed anything and everything on the shelves, just in case. The party people, who refused to follow any guidelines, either claiming the virus was a hoax, or believing it but deciding that if the world was ending and we were all going to die anyway, they may as well enjoy themselves in the meantime.

It’s not a cheerful thought. When you read these apocalyptic books and watch Armageddon films, you always assume that if disaster strikes, you’re going to be one of the good guys. One of the heroes. When that time for action comes, you’re going to jump up and take charge, be part of the resistance and save everyone. When the apocalypse arrives, you’ll be prepared.

But it doesn’t always work that way. How do you make a contingency plan for the impossible? When life as you know it ends, you aren’t prepared. No one ever is. That’s what Pfeffer shows us in her novel. All you can really do is try to survive, which is what Miranda and her family do. They struggle to keep going. They face highs and lows, have gains and losses.

The story is achingly real, one of those books that make you feel like a different person after you finish it.

Life As We Knew It is available on Amazon. Check it out! It’s worth the read.

Stay safe!

https://www.amazon.com/Life-As-We-Knew-Book-ebook/dp/B003K15IIK/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=life+as+we+knew+it&qid=1586740280&sr=8-1