Stormy Books for a Stormy Weekend

It looks like Hurricane Joaquin is going to stay out to see, so the impending storms aren’t going to be as bad as originally thought. But, staying with the theme of weather disasters…

I heard that the discussion for life as we knew it was quite lively at the beginning of the year. So, I thought I’d just mention that it’s a series – a quartet actually. The second book is the dead & the gone. It retells the disaster through the eyes of a teen boy, Alex, living in New York City with his two sisters.

In the third book, this world we live in, it’s a year later, and Miranda’s dad shows up with Alex and his sisters. Finally, in the fourth book, the shade of the moon, it’s two years later and Miranda’s brother Jon tells his story.

A Little Storm-Related Reading

Today’s book suggestions actually come from Callie’s mom. She sent me an email yesterday suggesting some good “storm” reading.

Susan Beth Pfeffer’s Life as We Knew It trilogy is a different kind of dystopia. Instead of some evil government or organization dividing society up (a la The Hunger Games or Divergent), or some environmental catastrophe, this is a dystopia with some astronomical roots. At the beginning of the first book, everyone is excited to watch a meteor that is about to come really, really close to earth. In fact, it comes as close as the moon…and pushes the moon closer to earth. At first, everyone thinks it’s really cool. But think about it. The moon has control over our water, and we’ve got a lot of water. If the moon’s out of whack, it’s going to pull a lot of things out of whack with it. The weather changes severely. Volcanoes erupt. Blizzards happen. People are stranded in their homes for months with no electricity or means of communication (no video games…no computers). It’s really kind of a scary scenario.

I first read this a few years ago, right after the earthquake hit in DC and right before Hurricane Irene hit us. It left me a little freaked out. Might not be the best reading if you fear you might lose you power again. But then again, maybe it’ll make you appreciate that it’s only out for a day or two.

I’ve only read the first book, but I know lots of people who have read the trilogy and say it just gets better and better.