In Life as We Knew It, a meteor hits the moon, causing it to move closer to the earth. This affects the tides, which wreaks havoc on the earth (volcanoes, floods, etc.) and causes an end-of-the-world situation. The book is in the form of a journal written by a girl named Miranda who, along with her family, is trying to stay alive.
I did not particularly care for the book. It's fine - there is nothing objectionable about it, and I would have no problem with it being assigned as summer reading, but I didn't enjoy it. It's really dull - I'm a fast reader, and it took me FOREVER to get through it, mostly because I wasn't interested in reading. Not much happens, the characters are (as Margaret described them) rather "oatmeal" - nothing compelling or interesting about them, and the main character is not in any way heroic. Instead of helping her family survive, she complains about how lame it is to have no food and fights with her mom. When she does help, it is unwillingly. There are also a few random details (her crush on a famous figure skater, her failed attempt to become a famous figure skater, and her brief romance with a guy named Dan) that don't seem to have much of a purpose. I don't see our students being interested in this, and I would have a hard time trying to convince them it's good. Given the other options we have available, I don't think this is the best choice.
In Life as We Knew It, a meteor hits the moon, causing it to move closer to the earth. This affects the tides, which wreaks havoc on the earth (volcanoes, floods, etc.) and causes an end-of-the-world situation. The book is in the form of a journal written by a girl named Miranda who, along with her family, is trying to stay alive.
ReplyDeleteI did not particularly care for the book. It's fine - there is nothing objectionable about it, and I would have no problem with it being assigned as summer reading, but I didn't enjoy it. It's really dull - I'm a fast reader, and it took me FOREVER to get through it, mostly because I wasn't interested in reading. Not much happens, the characters are (as Margaret described them) rather "oatmeal" - nothing compelling or interesting about them, and the main character is not in any way heroic. Instead of helping her family survive, she complains about how lame it is to have no food and fights with her mom. When she does help, it is unwillingly. There are also a few random details (her crush on a famous figure skater, her failed attempt to become a famous figure skater, and her brief romance with a guy named Dan) that don't seem to have much of a purpose. I don't see our students being interested in this, and I would have a hard time trying to convince them it's good. Given the other options we have available, I don't think this is the best choice.