During the past week we have been reading Life as We Knew It by Susan Beth Pfeffer. In which during this book a meteor strikes the moon and knocks it closer in orbit to the Earth. This meteor throws off the tides which causes mass tsunamis and other disasters, such as volcanoes and earthquakes. Through out the story we follow Miranda and her family as they encounter the so called ending off the world and the struggles it ensues.
While reading this book I had mixed feeling about it from the beginning. I feel like the beginning of the book started off very slow and boring, and took me awhile to actually get into it. But once the meteor struck the moon I felt as almost I couldn’t read fast enough to find out what happens next. Then the next part that kept me reading was the grocery store scene, in which Miranda, her mom, Johnny, and Ms. Nesbitt went into the store to stock up on food supply and other survival equipment they might need. This scene drew me into the book and keep me turning the pages in suspense to find out what happens next. But after this scene I felt like it really slowed down and became almost predictable. You could tell another disaster was bound to happen, which almost turned me away. Between the disasters I found it very hard to keep my attention focused onto the book.
I don’t think I would recommend this book to other high school students, the reasons I based my judgement on this book is are, for one, the development of the story. I felt as the story progressed that it almost became predictable, a disaster would happen and would cause ripple effect too the story, then this would repeat. I also based my opinion of this book on the concept, which I found to be very boring. I found the story to be actually interesting at parts when the first few disasters occurred, but between the disasters I couldn’t focus on the little boring aspects of the book. I didn’t really care about Brandon the figure skater or how the day went with her swimming at the pond with Dan. Those aspects of the book bored me immensely. “Dan and I swam. We also kissed. I like them both so much, I’m not sure which I prefer.” (page 86) I fell like these parts of the story could have been left out and then I might have actually enjoyed it.The last criteria I based my judgement of the book was on how the characters developed. I didn’t like how Matt went from being almost a leader and for the family to basically keeping to himself and giving up hope. I also didn’t like how the Megan and Sammi characters played out, i feel like something more could have been done with them that could have made the story more interesting.
Others who say that they would recommend this book to everyone and that it is the best book ever is just wrong in my eyes. And they are wrong because the story is almost repetitive, the same things basically occurred over and over. A disaster then something the family had to deal with due to the disaster that had occurred. Between the world ending and going swimming was Miranda just ranting on and on about her problems, which I could have cared less about and which drew me farther and farther away from this book.
As i mentioned before, I would not recommend this book to any other high school students. And I based my judgement of this on the development of the story, the concept, and the development of the characters. In which I found the story repetitive, the concept boring, and the character development lacking. I did not find this book a good read as a whole.
The best thing I learned last Semester was.........
The best thing I learned from last semester was about Enginerring form the research paper I accomplished.
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