Book club: Life As We Knew It

It has been a while since I read a book that has put my imagination into overdrive. I can definitely say nearly a full month later, I'm still thinking about "Life As We Knew It" by Susan Beth Pfeffer.  We read this for book club last month and it sparked one of the more lengthy discussions our club has had about a book in 3 years.

This very quick read is told through journal entries by a 16 year old girl in the months following a massive end-of-days type natural disaster. She describes what her family (and her mom in particular) does to try to ensure the family survives. Since most of the plot happens within their home it really made me wonder what on earth I'd do in a similar position for my family. 

Then just a couple weeks after our book club discussion we had our massive power outage in this area. We were only out for 24 hours but many families in the area were out for nearly 5 days. That experience only stirred up the thoughts of this book again. While checking in with my fellow book club friends for updates on how they were doing I discovered I was not alone. There were several jokes being passed about having enough canned foods for survival.

I'm thankful it was all just a joke to us. I honestly can't imagine facing the choices the mother makes in the book. Even though it is the girl's story, it is hard not to look past her to see the mom holding everything together. Funny how that happens when you become a parent yourself, isn't it??

And just a note, this is book 1 of a trilogy. I devoured all 3 books in about 4 days. This was by far the best. I was a bit disappointed in the 2nd and 3rd books but I was too engaged in the plot to not read them. If that isn't a sign of a good book, I don't know what is.