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raefinlayI just finished Susan Beth Pfeffer's LIFE AS WE KNEW IT. What a great book. It's the kind of great that's hard to shake, like…omg, we don't have a woodstove and if world-wide disaster strikes we'll all die and just how much canned food do we have in the cupboards? Oh, and candles…
So, yeah, I love me a good apocalypse. But what I found most convincing was the emotional arc of the piece, from flippancy to denial to dread to despair to resignation to triumph.
There are a few times, a blessed few, when the voice is interrupted by a word or phrase that is clearly Ms. Pfeffer's rather than Miranda's. And Miranda's two best buds begin as painful archetypes, (The Born-Again! The Slut!) but their respective character stories end note perfect. < bunny trail > I actually learned something from this. Archetypes can be very useful when one needs to pack a thematic punch as efficiently as possible. </ bunny trail >.
I had trouble buying the ending--which I won't give away here--mostly because of my delicate Libertarian sensibilities, but again, thematically, it was just right.
It's rare for a book to grab me emotionally, and this one did just that. I cared about what happened to these people, and my brain is still spinning with the logistics of their survival.
Anyone else read it? What did you think?
***EDIT: Looks like this book just made the Norton Award Ballot.
So, yeah, I love me a good apocalypse. But what I found most convincing was the emotional arc of the piece, from flippancy to denial to dread to despair to resignation to triumph.
There are a few times, a blessed few, when the voice is interrupted by a word or phrase that is clearly Ms. Pfeffer's rather than Miranda's. And Miranda's two best buds begin as painful archetypes, (The Born-Again! The Slut!) but their respective character stories end note perfect. < bunny trail > I actually learned something from this. Archetypes can be very useful when one needs to pack a thematic punch as efficiently as possible. </ bunny trail >.
I had trouble buying the ending--which I won't give away here--mostly because of my delicate Libertarian sensibilities, but again, thematically, it was just right.
It's rare for a book to grab me emotionally, and this one did just that. I cared about what happened to these people, and my brain is still spinning with the logistics of their survival.
Anyone else read it? What did you think?
***EDIT: Looks like this book just made the Norton Award Ballot.
