Miranda's Life As We Knew

Life As We Knew It explores what happens to an ordinary family in a normal American town when their world changes forever. An asteroid hits the moon, knocking it into a closer orbit. This causes all kinds of disasters that bring the world to a halt. Without shops, food, electricity, heat and water, Miranda and her family face problems together and struggle to survive.

The story begins with a brief introduction to Miranda's life. She is a normal sixteen-year-old girl who attends high school and thinks about friends and boys. The story is told in the form of her diary, allowing the reader to see her private thoughts and feelings. Everyone at her school is excited about the asteroid that will hit the moon, but when it happens it is not the exciting event they all thought it would be. Instead, the asteroid knocks the moon closer to the earth, causing tsunamis, storms and earthquakes all over the world. Miranda's mother begins to worry about the future, and takes Miranda and her younger brother Jonny out of school to help her shop for supplies. They each take a cart at the supermarket and keep going back for more until their car is full. They buy canned food, dry food, medicine, water and other supplies. Miranda thinks her mother is a little crazy for buying so much, but they will later come to be very thankful for it. Later, Miranda's older brother

School is closed early for the summer because they have nothing left to feed the students. Jonny's baseball camp is still on, and he will be able to have fresh food by working at the nearby farm. When Jonny has gone, Miranda's mother introduces rationing. Miranda becomes jealous, irritable and frightened, and gets into a lot of arguments with her mother. She starts a brief relationship with a boy called Dan who swims at Miller's Pond with her, but this does not last long because Dan decides to leave the town. Miranda's friend Sammi also leaves, and her other friend Megan