Life as We Knew it by Susan Beth Pfeffer

Life as they knew it for Miranda is forever changed when an asteroid hits the moon and moves it closer to the Earth.  Unprecedented natural disasters strike, and nobody can prepare for devastation on such a global scale.  Miranda and her family work very hard just to survive.  One day Miranda is worried about homework and just being a teenager.  Before you know it, the worries change to having enough food, staying warm, protecting what they have from others, and deciding who to trust.  

This book takes place in a rural area so the frantic pace isn't fast and furious, but slow and unwieldy. People are isolated from one another, and this sense of not knowing carries its own type of despair.  Miranda and her family periodically trek into town to collect food rations, gather news, and to talk to anyone...Anyone.  To add insult to injury, a pandemic flu hits the survivors, and real panic blossoms.

I don't know what it is about dystopic novels, but I can't seem to get enough of them.  I'm disappointed with a few character portrayals, but isn't that the way it goes sometimes?  I am eager to read the other books in this trilogy.