Book #20: Life as we Knew It
Sep. 22nd, 2012 07:13 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
thistlechaserBoy, I'm speeding right along! My goal for the year was to hit half of the ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
50bookchallenge goal, and after lagging behind for months, I'm zooming!
Anyway! Life as we Knew It by Susan Beth Pfeffer was book #20 for this year. Even if the previous two books I read hadn't been seriously meh, this book would have been so amazingly wonderful!
In my book #18 (The Warrior's Apprentice) review, I said "I don't need a book to be totally dark for me to enjoy it" -- I don't need a book to be 100% dark for me to enjoy it, but apparently that helps me to fall head over heels in love with it. :D
This was one of my favorite kind of books. 'Something awful happened, now the world is ending and nearly everyone is dead, so how do the survivors cope?'. Unlike many other books of that type, As We Knew It didn't rush through the 'something awful happens' and 'everyone is dying' parts of that. It was also written first person, and between those two elements, it was delightfully dark and hopeless.
Oh so so so hopeless. Not even reading the Game of Thrones books did I think it was a likely ending that EVERY character would be dead at the end! (Don't take that as a spoiler, I'm not commenting on the ending.)
The book started with an asteroid hitting the moon (which the scientists knew was going to happen), but it turned out to be denser than they thought, and it knocked the moon much closer to the Earth. Tides changed, earthquakes, volcanoes, and other things, all seen through the eyes of a teenage girl trying to survive it with her family.
Bad thing after bad thing after bad thing happens (all perfectly reasonable, and I laughed as I guessed the source of one bad part -- it made such sense!). I can't explain why it's such a delight to read about so much darkness (I certainly do not wish it on anyone RL!), but there's something satisfying about it and it always seems to make it into a better story for me.
Unfortunately I read a small spoiler by accident, so I knew a little about the ending, but it was still wonderful to see how it all happened. On the plus side, through the spoiler I learned this is a series! :D :D :D Guess what books #21 and #22 will be!
If you like end of the world stories, run (don't walk!) and get this book.
Related: Even after all this time of having an ereader app, it still delights me that I can get a whole new book in seconds. One click on the Amazon site, maybe five seconds to download, and I have a new book! Amazing!
Also related: I have so much respect for the author. She wrote a fourth book for the series, it was with the publisher and ready to go, and she pulled it at the last minute because she didn't feel the quality was there. There's someone who's not in this for the money!
50bookchallenge goal, and after lagging behind for months, I'm zooming!Anyway! Life as we Knew It by Susan Beth Pfeffer was book #20 for this year. Even if the previous two books I read hadn't been seriously meh, this book would have been so amazingly wonderful!
In my book #18 (The Warrior's Apprentice) review, I said "I don't need a book to be totally dark for me to enjoy it" -- I don't need a book to be 100% dark for me to enjoy it, but apparently that helps me to fall head over heels in love with it. :D
This was one of my favorite kind of books. 'Something awful happened, now the world is ending and nearly everyone is dead, so how do the survivors cope?'. Unlike many other books of that type, As We Knew It didn't rush through the 'something awful happens' and 'everyone is dying' parts of that. It was also written first person, and between those two elements, it was delightfully dark and hopeless.
Oh so so so hopeless. Not even reading the Game of Thrones books did I think it was a likely ending that EVERY character would be dead at the end! (Don't take that as a spoiler, I'm not commenting on the ending.)
The book started with an asteroid hitting the moon (which the scientists knew was going to happen), but it turned out to be denser than they thought, and it knocked the moon much closer to the Earth. Tides changed, earthquakes, volcanoes, and other things, all seen through the eyes of a teenage girl trying to survive it with her family.
Bad thing after bad thing after bad thing happens (all perfectly reasonable, and I laughed as I guessed the source of one bad part -- it made such sense!). I can't explain why it's such a delight to read about so much darkness (I certainly do not wish it on anyone RL!), but there's something satisfying about it and it always seems to make it into a better story for me.
Unfortunately I read a small spoiler by accident, so I knew a little about the ending, but it was still wonderful to see how it all happened. On the plus side, through the spoiler I learned this is a series! :D :D :D Guess what books #21 and #22 will be!
If you like end of the world stories, run (don't walk!) and get this book.
Related: Even after all this time of having an ereader app, it still delights me that I can get a whole new book in seconds. One click on the Amazon site, maybe five seconds to download, and I have a new book! Amazing!
Also related: I have so much respect for the author. She wrote a fourth book for the series, it was with the publisher and ready to go, and she pulled it at the last minute because she didn't feel the quality was there. There's someone who's not in this for the money!
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no subject
Date: 2012-09-25 01:04 am (UTC)I've read a lot of good books over the last couple of years, I can recommend a few if you wish.
no subject
Date: 2012-09-25 01:34 am (UTC)I look forward to seeing your posts on the 50 comm!
My to-read pile is so big already, I'm trying to get through a bunch of them before I let myself be tempted to buy new ones, but still! What have been some of the ones you've enjoyed the most?
no subject
Date: 2012-09-25 01:46 am (UTC)The Rook (http://www.amazon.com/The-Rook-A-Novel-ebook/dp/B004QX07EG/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1348537335&sr=1-1&keywords=The+Rook) by Daniel O'Malley. It's a first novel and a light read, but quite funny.
Ready Player One (http://www.amazon.com/Ready-Player-One-ebook/dp/B004J4WKUQ/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1348537151&sr=1-1&keywords=ready+player+one) by Ernest Cline. It's also Cline's first book, but he's a good screenwriter. He's the guy who wrote Fanboys
Redshirts: A Novel in Three Codas (http://www.amazon.com/Redshirts-Novel-Three-Codas-ebook/dp/B0079XPUOW/ref=sr_1_2?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1348537475&sr=1-2&keywords=redshirts+john+scalzi) by John Scalzi, a longtime favourite author of mine. Scalzi is always funny, and this is a book written for Trekkies.
no subject
Date: 2012-09-25 03:39 pm (UTC)