Life As We Knew It

Love is another universal theme addressed in the novel. When Miranda’s family is first introduced, the reader finds that Miranda’s dad has remarried and is expecting a child with his new wife. From the outset, Miranda is a teenager dealing with divorced parents and an extended family. Later in the book, it is hinted at that when her parents divorced, each showered the children with Christmas gifts in an attempt to demonstrate their love. The book makes a strong point, however, in showing that despite the divorce, Miranda’s parents remain friends, and even help each other out after the moon event. In this sense, the novel shows that love does not end because parents get divorced or remarried. Likewise, evidence of love is not limited to material goods, like presents. The concern each parent has for their children, and vice versa, is a true testament to the love they feel for each other. When Miranda’s family is exchanging gifts, not knowing if they will ever see their father again, Miranda says that having her family with her, and being happy with them, is more important than material gifts.

Romantic love is also addressed in the novel in various ways. Miranda’s friend Sammi is portrayed as a somewhat promiscuous teenage girl, behavior that appears to be a coping mechanism after their friend Becky dies. She is with a different boy every week, and when life becomes too hard in Howell, she leaves with a man twice her age in search of a better life somewhere else. She admits that she does not love the man, but she explains that he is kind to her and her parents, and that he holds the promise of a better life, which is why she has agreed to go away with him. Sammi uses love—or at least romantic relationships—as a coping mechanism, and when the catastrophes hit, she then uses it as a way to improve her circumstances. What would seem indecent under normal circumstances—Sammi’s parents giving her their blessing to run away with a man in his forties—becomes, after the moon event, a means of survival.

Miranda, too, has her first brush with love in the novel, when she begins skating with Dan at Miller’s Pond. They kiss, and over the next few weeks, spend more and more time together. Under normal circumstances, Dan admits that he would have asked her to the prom. Dan leaves, eventually, to search for his sister, and Miranda is left wondering if she will ever know true love again. Miranda’s mother also finds a love interest in Peter, a doctor who becomes part of Miranda’s extended family. Laura and Peter have an obvious interest in one another, and in one scene, Miranda notes that Peter carries her mother more tenderly than her father had ever done. However, when a flu epidemic hits the town, Peter dies and Miranda’s mother is left alone. Both Dan and Peter, show that while romantic love can be fleeting, it is important, even in times of crisis.

The novel depicts a dystopian world ravished by apocalyptic disasters. Famine, starvation, disease and natural disasters all decimate the world’s population after the moon is pushed closer to the earth. The state of the world is such that survivors must muster all of their knowledge and faith to survive. The novel is startling in that Miranda’s world is eerily similar to the world of the reader. Miranda is a present-day teenager with TV, internet and other technology at her disposal. Our reliance on such technology means that many people would not be able to survive the kind of catastrophic events that the novel depicts. When food runs out, and disease ravages the population, the survivors are left to fend for themselves without stores, fast food chains or government assistance. Through snippets of news from the radio and trips into town, Miranda’s family learns that more and more people are dying from starvation and disease. As such, survival is shown to be a worldwide affair that is out of the hands of most people.

Miranda’s mother takes action early on to ensure that her family survives. Though Miranda thinks it is dramatic and unnecessary, they join the hordes of people who are buying up supplies and stockpiling food. Even the most insignificant things, like baby clothes, are bought in bundles. Survival becomes something that does away with pride and decency, and people become animalistic when trying to secure provisions for themselves and their families. In this sense, the novel shoes how quickly society and community can break down when people’s survival is threatened. As the novel continues, people begin to understand that family comes first. Even if they have extra food, no one is willing to help others out because survival means looking out for family first. People even begin looting and stealing to ensure that they have firewood and food.

By the end of the novel, Miranda sees that because they live so far from town, the family has been able to survive where others have not. The flu that wiped out most of the town spread rapidly because of how close people live to one another. Starvation became a serious problem when people ran out of food and had no assistance. When the gas and electricity were cut off, people without a woodstove have no method of heating water or staying warm, and so they froze to death. Miranda sees that all off the things her mother and brother did to ensure their safety—including rationing food—was to ensure their survival. The family even stops eating meals to ensure that at least Jonny, the youngest son, might survive when the rest of them have died.

When Miranda’s family is hit with the flu and she is told that they will all die, Miranda realizes just how much she wants to live, and more importantly, how much she loves her family and wants them all to survive. Whereas her mother and brother, Matt, had been so instrumental in the family’s survival before this point, Miranda now takes on a more mature role and takes care of her family, nursing them all back to health.