“I know I should be grateful that we have a warm place to live. I have a lot to be grateful for. We’ve been getting weekly food deliveries for a month now, and Mom’s been letting us eat two meals a day. I’m still hungry, but nothing like I used to be. Matt’s regained the strength he lost from the flu, and I think Jon’s grown a little bit. Mom’s gotten back to being Mom. She insists we clean the house as best we can every day and pretend to do some schoolwork.”

Miranda shows a budding maturity in expressing her gratitude, especially given the dire circumstances (she is still hungry, but not as hungry as she was during the winter). This new world quickly makes one adjust their perspective, demonstrating The Challenge of Accepting a New Reality. This also reveals Mom’s commitment to restore and maintain what she sees as normalcy, which is almost certainly untenable in the long run.

“Somewhere there must be a place where people are eating eggs and drinking milk. I don’t know where, or how they get the food, but I bet somewhere in what’s left of America, there are places with food and electricity and lots of books to read.”

Miranda must also maintain hope, not just gratitude for the little that is left. The dream of utopian spaces—where food, warmth, and culture are plentiful—keeps her focused on the future rather than mired in the past or miserable in the present. This specific fantasy reveals an important aspect of Miranda’s character: For her, books are as nourishing as food.

“‘I’m sorry,’ I said, even though I wasn’t. Sometimes I think Mom and Matt make all the decisions and don’t care what I think.”

Miranda is chafing against not only authority but also her liminal position between childhood and adulthood. This transitional stage characterizes the novel as a bildungsroman, or coming-of-age story. Miranda’s primary challenge, beyond physical survival, is navigating The Tension Between Responsibility and Independence.