Susan Pfeffer's Life As We Knew It

1173 Words5 Pages
The moon and Earth come closer together than ever before… Life as Miranda knows it will change forever… When an asteroid comes hurling towards the Moon, life turns unexpectedly exciting for Miranda, a High School Sophomore. Miranda’s life as a teenager is nothing out of the ordinary. School is always a big issue and she constantly needs to deal with her friend’s problems. (Pfeffer, “Life As We Knew It”, 5-7) Miranda also has a slightly broken family. Her mother and father divorced earlier, and her father now lives with a new wife in Springfield. (Pfeffer, “Life As We Knew It”, 1, 23) Her older brother Matt, who she often looks up to, is at a college in Ithaca, New York, and her younger brother, Jonny, is involved in Baseball. (Pfeffer, “Life…show more content…
on… It was a Thanksgiving Saturday of 2004 when the idea of writing “Life As We Knew It” came out of the blue, while Susan Beth Pfeffer was sitting down on her chair, watching a movie called Meteor on her T.V. After the movie, Susan thought to herself, “I wonder what it would be like being a teenager living through a worldwide catastrophe.” (Pfeffer, "Susan Beth Pfeffer: How I Came To Write Life As We Knew It") From there the ideas started flowing in her mind on the main characters, plots, rolling catastrophes, and setting. If Susan Beth Pfeffer decided to turn off her T.V. (which she was planning on doing at 3:50 p.m., since there was nothing else to watch) she would have missed the greatest inspiration for “Life As We Knew It” at 4:00p.m., Meteors. Writing Process: By the time dinner of the same day came, Ms. Pfeffer had the outline for her story. She spent three weeks pre-writing, a few of months writing draft one at home, and about a year later, in 2006, a publisher accepted to publish “Life As We Knew It.” She dedicated her book to two of her best friends since she did not know who to dedicate the book to. Since then, Life As We Knew It, became a worldwide hit, being read in many different countries, by all ages. (Pfeffer, "Susan Beth Pfeffer: How I Came To Write Life As We Knew…show more content…
Pfeffer introduces several themes in the Book, Life As We Knew It. Family– A Blessing or Curse, is the first major theme of the book. When the asteroid and moon collided with each other causing mass destruction, all that Miranda could depend on was her family now. We can see this theme of family grow when Miranda tries to make sure Matt, her older brother, and her Dad were okay by calling them even though most communication lines were down. Therefore, through Miranda’s actions, Family, is going to be a major theme of the book especially when trying to survive, which leads up to Susan’s second theme in, Life As We Knew It, which is Survival or The Will to Survive. (Pfeffer, “Life As We Knew It”, 21, 27-28) Survival or The Will to Survive is also going to be a major theme because once the asteroid hit the moon, the destruction that came about is causing fear, chaos, and many supplies like food are starting to become scarce. Since food is becoming scarce, the family and Miranda will need to learn how to continue life in hardship, which relates to the theme of Survival. (Pfeffer, “Life As We Knew It”,
Show More
Related

  • Review Of Susan Beth Pfeffer's 'Life As We Knew It'

    460 Words  | 2 Pages

    “Maybe there really is a Santa Claus.” This simple sentence from Life As We Knew It, by Susan Beth Pfeffer can have countless interpretations. Santa Claus, the world's beloved giver of gifts, transporter of toys, rider of reindeer, is more important than one might think. Most children only realize the minimum; behavior brings them more presents. In reality, Santa is giving them the best gift of all: everlasting hope. Santa allows kids to have something to look forward to all year round; his arrival

    Read More

More about Susan Pfeffer's Life As We Knew It

Open Document