Miranda Evans is a sixteen year old girl who lives in northeastern Pennsylvania. Her diary entries form the narrative of Susan Beth Pfeffer's 2006 science fiction novel that describes what happens when an asteroid hits the moon and brings it closer to the Earth; there is a major threat of destruction and life is no longer as Miranda and her family have known it. Miranda keeps her journal for a whole year, but is never really sure if this is something that she is doing for herself or to leave some kind of document for those who come after, should her family find themselves unable to survive this upheaval.
Although the book is rather dark and frightening and there is little hope for any of the characters within it, critical reviews were universally positive. The novel was named Young Adult Library Services Book of the Year, and was shortlisted for the Andre Norton Award for Science Fiction and/or Fantasy.
Life as We Knew It is the first book in a trilogy that includes The Dead and the Gone, published two years later, and 2010's The World We Live In. Despite having written over thirty novels in her long career it is for the New York Times bestseller list trilogy that she is best known.
