Rosoff, Meg. How I Live Now. New York: Random House, 2004.
ISBN
Summary
Rosoff’s book concerns a 15-year-old girl from New York who is shipped off to England by her father, and evil stepmother. This, however, is far from a Cinderella story. Daisy is literally starving. She is starving for attention, for life, for affection from anyone who will give it to her, so starves herself to find some semblance of control in her life. When she is picked up from the airport by her British cousin, Edmond, she notices something different about him. She notices something different about her whole new British family (four cousins and a sweet aunt) that she can’t quite put her finger on, but somehow she begins to feel loved and accepted by these people who she doesn’t even know. She lives peacefully in their house in the English countryside getting to know this family, and come to grips with her new life there. In this fictional world, World War III is about to start, and the girl who seems farthest from the action gets caught in the middle. Daisy’s Aunt has important business about the coming war to address, so leaves the kids for a time to fend for themselves, but the war breaks out and she is unable to return. The kids enjoy their time without adult supervision, and Daisy begins a sexual relationship with Edmond, but it all comes to a halt when the British Army moves in and relocates them, splitting up the family.
“ So there we are carrying on our happy little life of underage sex, child labor and espionage when someone came to visit us, which after weeks of Just Us Five kind of took us by surprise.”
Now all that Daisy and her young cousin Piper have to find a way to get back to the boys and home before everything they know is destroyed.
Rosoff has a way with words. She is blunt, descriptive, and says things the way teenagers do. The most notable aspect of her writing is her use of capitalization. Anytime the young female protagonist uses a hint of sarcasm or refers to something that she has given name to, no matter how seemingly unimportant, it is capitalized. This is how we come to know Daisy.
It was when I was thinking things like this that I sometimes noticed Edmond looking at me in his odd, listening kind of way and sometimes I looked back at him doing the same expression myself just to see what he’d say.. But mostly he just smiled and half closed his eyes and look more like Wise Dog than ever and I thought to myself If this kid turns out to be thirty-five I won’t be a bit surprised.
Reviews
Daisy's voice is flawless and engaging. Her character is spiky, self-absorbed and resentful, yet she shows vulnerability and passion. Whilst battling with anorexia, Daisy deals with loss and responsibility as she lurches from one crisis to another, showing resilience and courage in roles beyond her years. The depth of her character is vast: it's hard not to feel anything for her as she captures the reader in a snare of humour, love, pathos and turmoil.
-The Bookbag http://www.thebookbag.co.uk/reviews/index.php/How_I_Live_Now_by_Meg_Rosoff
“A daring wise, and sensitive look at the complexities of being young in a world teetering on chaos.”
-People
Enrichment Activity
This book would be best as a companion book for independent reading after a unit on war or perhaps in literature circles where the theme might be war or pain, or being a teenager. This is an edgy book that I wouldn’t recommend for everyone, so it might be go well with a book like Speak or Thirteen Reasons Why, where real issues are dealt with in a fictional setting.
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