Pfeffer, Susan Beth: Life As We Knew It

[rachelmanija]

I am a connoisseur of the post-apocalypse novel. But what I like about the genre is the idea of the desperate struggle to preserve civilization and save the people you can, or, after the disaster, to re-create civilization from scratch. I am also a sucker for stories of disparate groups of people banding together and finding unsuspected heroism

Comments

[buymeaclue]

>One night a meteor hits the moon, knocking it into a lower orbit. Immediately, tidal waves drown coastal cities.

This part was genuinely upsetting to me, even reading it outside with the sun shining and all. Natural disasters are as fascinating to me as they are horrifying, and maybe that suckers me into being extra-affected. But the snowball effect and the lack of accurate info really hit home.

>Everyone tries to keep life going on as usual, as much as they can...

And this, I think, is really effective, too.

Interesting thought on the gender roles. I have a vague feeling that the choice of the youngest boy to live had something to do with his being the sturdiest and healthiest, as a result of being sheltered the most because he was the baby...?

I've seen the ending dinged a time or two for being too easily optimistic, but your read puts a nicely creepy spin on.

[rachelmanija]

The mother says at one point that the younger brother has the best chance because he's the strongest, but Miranda later says that she thinks her mother thinks that a boy would have a better chance than a girl.

Oh, wait. I think the part when the mother asks Miranda to stop eating to give her brother a better chance is even more disturbing than the sex slave part. Not because of the gender thing, just the idea that a mother would have to choose not merely to sacrifice one child to save another, but that she would have to ask the other child to agree to die.

[buymeaclue]

>Miranda later says that she thinks her mother thinks that a boy would have a better chance than a girl.

Ahh, I'd forgotten that.

The not-eating is creepy, for sure. I bought it (and especially the slow creep, starting with the mom's not-eating, and denying it), but horrific to think about.

[marith]

Gah. I don't think I'll be reading that one.

Am reminded of Tanith Lee's "Crying in the Rain" and Connie Willis' "A Letter from the Clearys", two short stories that hit some of the same aspects from slightly different directions.

[tekalynn]

I was just thinking of the Willis and couldn't remember the title. Thanks.

[jenfullmoon]

Yeah, I WANTED to read it, until I found out it went that depressing. Thanks for the heads-up.

[cofax7]

Interesting, given that I just read Cormac McCarthy's The Road, which is also an entirely unhopeful post-apocalyptic novel. Sadly, there are almost no women in it, and those who are, also inhabit very traditional gender roles as well.

I think one depressing and hopeless post-apocalypse novel in a week is enough.

(If you're looking for apocalyptic stuff, I can't recommend Yahtzee's Goodnight Moon strongly enough. PG, Joan of Arcadia, but it crosses fannish boundaries and you don't really need the canon beyond the premise.)

[oyceter]

Seconding the rec for "Goodnight Moon." Makes me cry every single time I read it, and I read it several times before ever watching the show. (FYI -- Helen is Joan's mom, Will is Joan's dad, Kevin is her older brother, Luke is her younger brother).

I think I'll look up the Pfeffer, thanks for the tip!

[_swallow]

Just reminding me of Goodnight Moon made me cry!

[loligo]

It heartens me to think that, as long as there's still sunshine, my post-apocalyptic experience would be a lot more like the TV show Jericho: tight-knit supportive community, lots of agriculture and hunting & fishing in the area, and a fair number of off-the-grid solar energy mavens. With no sun, all bets are off, but really, who feels the need to *write* about that stuff? I just can't imagine wanting to depress myself long enough and hard enough to write that depressing a book. And it's *speculatively* depressing -- writing about actual depressing events in honor of those who went through them is somewhat different.

Weird, I just read this about two weeks ago

[secritcrush]

don't see how plants can grow, and so there seems no way for humans or, indeed, most life to survive in the long-term. Though it's possible that Miranda's family might make another couple years on stored food.

My interpretation was that the perpetual winter brought on by the volcanoes was going to end, that things eventually were going to stabalize. I found the ending a bit of a cop out personally. Particularly the bit where Miranda goes off to town to die and then magically there's a reprieve.

I agree with the bit about her friend going off with the guy being very very creepy. (Also the whole religious thing with her other friend.)

Re: Weird, I just read this about two weeks ago

[rachelmanija]

If the volcanoes are erupting because the moon is essentially causing magma tides, that wouldn't ever stop. I am convinced that the family got a reprieve, but not a real rescue, and that in fifty years nothing will be left but lichen and cockroaches.

Re: Weird, I just read this about two weeks ago

[secritcrush]

I don't agree - eventually the pressure would be relieved and volcanic activity would calm down again. (And we've always had earth tides - I used to measure them in college as part of my internship, but the magnitude is so small compared to the earth's diameter that I don't believe that the changes posited in the book would cause cataclysmic tides.)