Sixteen year old Miranda wants a date for the prom. She wants to ace her tests, and to figure out why her former best friends Megan and Samantha are acting so strange. What she gets is an asteroid collision with the moon and a disaster on earth. Miranda keeps a journal describing her family's adjustments as food, water, fuel and even sunlight become scarce in her small Pennsylvania town. Miranda's concern with grades and friends evolves day by day into a desire to survive, with her family, for another month, another week, another day. The sense of her world becoming small and claustrophic is clearly imagined, as the whole family moves into the one room  that still has heat, thanks to her brother Matt chopping wood every day. Miranda is a realistic teen, who fights with her mother and brothers, while knowing how much she loves them. She longs to experience normal life before everyone dies. The situation is dire, but Pfeffer keeps hope alive. The companion title is The Dead and the Gone, the story of Alex, who experiences the disaster in New York City.