am i the only one who’s been stuffing my face (more than usual) since starting this book because the v. idea that chocolate might be extinct means we need to enjoy it while we can? and don’t even get me started on alcohol. sorry, mrs. nesbitt, but APPLE JUICE IS NOT WINE. i’d love to humor you, because you seem like a sweet old lady, not to mention a fount of knowledge on The Depression, but I CANNOT LIE TO MYSELF LIKE THAT.
anyhoo, now that we’ve discussed the characters, let’s move on to the semantics!
- what was yr top OMG/WTF moment in this section?
- rate the talky talk!
- what were the bonus factors for you?
- does the plot so far seem realistic to you? why or why not?
{ 2 trackbacks }
{ 32 comments… read them below or add one }
you guys, i’m really into the story, but the talky talk? it’s kind of sucking my pants, esp. when it comes to dialogue. i present to you exhibit A-Z from pg 149, when dan is saying good-bye to miranda:
“You don’t know what it’s like. I’m glad you don’t, Miranda. I’m glad this hasn’t really touched you yet. I hope it never does. And then it was summer and I couldn’t really figure out what I was supposed to be doing. So I swam. And I thought about loving you, but it didn’t seem fair to you or me.”
i thought about loving you?!!! WHAT? teenage boys do not talk like this! esp. teenage boys in the apocalypse! you KNOW that if the world was ending, teenage boys everywhere would be pulling an andrew keegan in “independence day” (“this may be our last night on earth. you don’t want to die a virgin, do you?”).
also, i need to go back and add dan to my facepunch list because YOU ARE A MORON. you think miranda hasn’t been “touched” by this yet?! SHE’S EATING ONE MEAL A DAY. SHE DREAMS ABOUT JARS OF PEANUT BUTTER. that’s not just a touch, it’s a head butt.
OMG POSH I WAS WRITING MY ENTRY BEFORE I SAW YOURS AND I AM SO GLAD WE BOTH THOUGHT OF ID4. Hahahahahahaha. Now I wish I would have googled and gotten the exact quote.
Also, HOW DID I NOT KNOW THAT WAS ANDREW KEEGAN?!
GUYS, I did not know that was Andrew Keegan either!! I cannot believe it. Especially since he as Joey Donner is one of my fave parts of “10 Things I Hate About You” (the movie). Sigh…Heath Ledger…so sad…
So, so, so true. I would’ve cashed in my V-card if I had it, probably the first night, at the block party. That’s how I roll in the post-A! But Dan and Miranda should have been doing it like rabbits, right there in the pond. Teenage hormones + post-A + survival of human race? Sorry, Mom, you forgot to stock up on condoms for the inevitable sex-fest at least ONE of your kids would be having!
i know my sex ed teacher (WHAT UP COACH W!) would probably fail me for saying this but… are condoms really necessary in a post-A society? i mean, isn’t the whole point to make babies?!
not that i’d want to be pregnant after the apocalypse cos WHERE MY EPIDURALS AT?
See, the funny thing is I read almost all of this on a Saturday and I DID NOT EAT THE ENTIRE DAY. Seriously. And I’m a HUNGRY kid. I didn’t even notice. It was like all the starvation made me depressed and I didn’t feel hungry. I have issues or something.
1. Easily, EASILY when Sammi started boinking a middle aged dude for food. That was the most OMG and yet the MOST REAL part of the book, imho. Like, I thought this book often went to easy on the GROSS/BADNESS that would come up in a post-A society, but that one was spot on. And that her parents were like “yay, whore your body, we want some progresso!”
2. The talky talk was RIGHT ON I thought. Miranda’s diary always felt really believable. Never too old or wise sounding, but never too “omgwtfbbq”.
3. Bonus Factors: Schools Out ForEVA. I mean, wouldn’t that have been kinda nice? At least for a while. Also, post-A LIBRARY. Think of all the time to catch up on all the YA we never get to read!
4. Ummmm no. I still think this is all too tame. I think people would be going WAY more crazy if the entire coasts were wiped out. Like, I’m never touched a gun/hate them but you better BELIEVE I would be at the local sporting goods story buying so many rifles and shotguns and bullets and whatever other things make guns go bang by the hundreds. And come on, Miranda is 16…she TOTALLY would have boinked that guy who was boring so I’ve forgotten his name. It’s like that scene in ID4 when that guy tells crazy Randy Quaids step-daughter “the world’s gonna end, you don’t wanna die a virgin.”
OMG i cannot believe that we just jinxed about INDEPENDENCE DAY. SOUL TWINS 4 LIFE. megan, i would totes share my canned tuna with you.
Hahaha, I have a feeling all the cool kids think of that because ID4 IS THE BEST MOVIE OF ALL TIME. Seriously, if you google my name, one of the 20 or so things that comes up is a cartoon I drew about ID4. I hope all my future employers love that movie too!!!
PS. I’ll even share my CHOCOLATE CHIPS with you
YOU DREW A CARTOON??? WHERE IS IT?!
“And that her parents were like ‘yay, whore your body, we want some progresso!’”
DUBS TRUE LOLZ AWARD WINNER.
Hahaha, well, Pfeffer via Miranda’s mom practically has a lady boner over progesso. She’s all like “it already has water!!!” LIKE NO OTHER SOUPS DO jeez.
The Sammi things was def. a big wtf moment. But I believed it because it was extreme and the book needed more extreme-ness. Like you I’d be at the gun store stocking up. And now I’m like, maybe I should get one now just in case. Look what this book has done to me.
The plot seems realistic–hell, I just read about, like, 15 earthquakes and tsunamis on Twitter in the last hour, and the moon (last I checked) is fine. The reactions of the families seem partially realistic. I was in one bad earthquake, and all the stores were all closed b/c shiz fell off the shelves and it was too dangerous, and no power, phone, or water. When the store opened again, I didn’t go in because there was seriously nothing there. No batteries, water, canned tuna, stray bag of choco chips–nada! I ended up going to a convenience store and paying $5.00 for a small bottle of Evian.
That mom? Should be doing national disaster PAs. Because what she did at the store was GENIUS.
1/4: i found it pretty weird that they were still kind of doing school, initially. other than that, i found the whole thing pretty believable, especially the science parts i already don’t understand–so, that’s what happens to the weather? ok, i’ll believe you. and the sammi situation–ditto to all the sentiments already shared. gross.
yeah, i found the continuance of school to be pretty unrealistic. i mean, BOTH OF THE COASTS ARE MISSING. i think the time for pretending like normal life will continue is WELL PAST.
Agreed, the school things was kinda ridiculous. Even if school did reopen I don’t think many parents would let their kids go.
yeah, sorry, but I am SO not going to school if half the world gets wiped out by tsunamis/earthquakes/etc.
my omg/wtf moment was when they said the carolina coast was submerged. i live in charleston and that’s located on the carolina coast y’all! i’d totally be dead right now if this was real.
and to think my whole life i’ve been worried about another “hurricane hugo” hitting us or that horrible earthquake that’s suppose happen oneday b/c charelston sits on a giant fault line. now i’m all worried about the moon getting closer to earth and submerging my fav dessert bakery, cupcake. i used cupcake’s cupcakes instead of cake at my wedding. i really love that place, it has the best black bottom cupcake and if i do survive i’m gunna need chocolate cupcakes!
and the whole school thing was bogus. they cancel school here if snow sticks to the ground. i’d doubt school would still be happening if a moon apocalyse had happened.
Hey, Allison, if you live in Charleston, I know an awesome craft shop in Summerville you should check out! Craft Happy!
Also, please send me some of those cupcakes. Now, please.
i’ll check it out. i love summerville because of this restaurant, perfectly franks, that just serves hotdogs with crazy toppings.
and i’ll send u cupcake if you want. no promises on it not having a bite taken out of though. http://www.freshcupcakes.com/
OM NOM NOM.
Sigh, looks like I’ll be baking this weekend!
My husband is a science geek and doesn’t think an asteroid could ever knock the moon out of orbit. I don’t know about that, but I do know some sort of horrible thing could happen to the world any day, so that seems realistic enough to me.
BUT I’m kinda surprised there wasn’t more violence in this book. Maybe it’s cause I live in Los Angeles and went through the Rodney King riots and all the big earthquakes… so I think many people revert to crazy violence when threatened. If people were starving/cold and knew you had food/firewood, they’d be breaking into your house and stealing it. Maybe they toned down the violence since its for teens?
I lived in LA, too, for 6 years, and wondered why the peeps in the book weren’t rioting and where was the National Guard hanging out on every corner for months after. I FREAKED during the Northridge quake! (Still have issues with it, can you believe?) The RK riots were so surreal. So much hate, violence, people on rooftops of their stores with sniper rifles, looting, burning the whole of South Central, curfews…yeah. But that is LA and LA County is huuuuuge. More possibilities for mass violence, I guess.
I thought maybe Pfeffer wanted to focus on a small town with less possibilities for that large of a violent act because she wanted to narrow in her focus on the family life. If you’re dodging bullets every day, it’s harder to have meaningful family moments with apple juice and oatmeal cookies.
i completely agree that the lack of violence is pretty unrealistic. i mean, at the v. least, someone should’ve tried to break into their house by now and steal their supplies. sure, it’s the suburbs, but as tom hanks taught us, that’s where the REAL evil lies.
My book club read this and we thought it was the nicest post-apocalyptic world ever! So gentle and safe!
School to teach kids to read sure.
But Miranda doing advanced high school subjects? What a waste of time. She should have been learning to chop wood.
Sara, that is a brilliant idea and I can’t believe the losebag teachers/school board didn’t think of it, like AT ALL. WTF, educators?? Maybe instead of teaching these poor kids algebraic formulas (formulae?) you could, I don’t know, teach them something useful like SURVIVAL SKILLS??
1) My WTF moments all revolved around this Dan kid. Where did he come from? They were on swim team and all of the sudden they’re kissing at the pond? What?!
2) Talky-talk: When I first started reading this novel, I had to really put things into perspective. Teen girl + diary = prepare for angst. I thought she was believable protag, whether I liked her or not. The extremely shallow commentary on not going to prom to the Big Quotes like “If God’s looking for sacrifices, all He has to do is look at Mom,” was pretty legit. Miranda had a few of those one-line zingers for sure, and her sarcasm could be funny at times.
3) Bonus factors: Crazy Shopping Day! I would have LOVED to partake in that madness. Food shopping strategery on steroids!
4) I really had to think about whether this plot was realistic or not, simply because of who I’m being forced to listen to in all of this. I have a really clipped perspective on what’s going on in Miranda’s world, because a) Miranda doesn’t care about much outside of her city as far as I can see and b) She’s extremely introverted/introspective. I think it’s realistic as far as the information she chooses to present to us, but I feel like things would be more in disarray in their town and WHAT IS GOING ON OUTSIDE THEIR HOUSE? Deets, please!
Yeah, I kept wondering to myself, why aren’t we finding out more about what’s going on in the world-at-large? I know TV was knocked out for most of the time, but they had radios, and you’d think Miranda would comment at least once on “the death toll worldwide has now reached 50 million” or something. I mean, if it was me, I would certainly consider that to be worth a mention in the ‘ol diary!!
I thought it was realistic that Miranda never mentioned what was going on in the world. I’ve looked back at my high school diaries and they are very self-centered!
I put on about 10 lbs while reading this. I ate constantly and then found myself reaching the checkout with far more canned goods than usual. Clearly the apocalypse is already upon my subconscious mind. And my stomach. Gar.
I, too, found myself looking into my pantry, wondering how many days we could survive on the pasta, soup and canned peaches sitting on the shelves! And I agree with the other comments about violence, although I sort of figured it was because they were in a small town and also lived pretty far outside of town. If this had taken place in LA or NYC, it would have been different. (The next one in the series in set in NYC…)