Life As We Knew It
Susan Beth Pfeffer
 Sixteen-year-old Miranda is living in Northeast Pennsylvania, United States. She is a sensitive teenager with a struggling life, seeing as how her parents are divorced, and her stepmother has a baby arriving. She has 2 best friends, Sammi, a carefree girl, and Megan, an overly religious girl. Told in diary form, Miranda lays out the story of a meteor knocking the Moon closer to Earth's orbit and causing worldwide catastrophes. She tells how her family struggles for survival in the apocalypse, which has caused tidal waves on the coasts, volcanoes that turn the air into killer smoke, and earthquakes shaking up the land. Miranda and her family do not live on the coast, nor near volcanoes, and her town has had little earthquake activity, but it affects the others around her, as some of the closest people to her begin to die and her dad's family faces challenges as they try to get to safety. Their family doctor, in a relationship with her Mom, dies of a raging flu that wipes out many people. Her only lifeline is her family, and they are forced to stay in their house and ration their food, water, and clothes. With the electricity out, Miranda starts to get used to her life in the apocalypse, but that changes as the moon's nearness causes climatic change that cools the earth, sending it into a horrible winter. Miranda's friend Sammi leaves with her 40-year-old boyfriend and Megan starves herself to death. Miranda's boyfriend, Dan, moves as well. She also meets her idol Brandon in the winter. Her family's ally Mrs. Nesbitt dies.