How I Live Now (Kindle Edition)

by Meg Rosoff (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review
Possibly one of the most talked about books of the year, Meg Rosoff's novel for young adults is the winner of the Guardian Children's Fiction Prize 2004. Heralded by some as the next best adult crossover novel since Mark Haddon's The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, who himself has given the book a thunderously good quote, this author's debut is undoubtedly stylish, readable and fascinating.

Rosoff's story begins in modern day London, slightly in the future, and as its heroine has a 15-year-old Manhattanite called Daisy. She's picked up at the airport by Edmond, her English cousin, a boy in whose life she is destined to become intricately entwined. Daisy stays at her Aunt Penn's country farmhouse for the summer with Edmond and her other cousins. They spend some idyllic weeks together--often alone with Aunt Penn away travelling in Norway. Daisy's cousins seem to have an almost telepathic bond, and Daisy is mesmerized by Edmond and soon falls in love with him.

But their world changes forever when an unnamed aggressor invades England and begins a years-long occupation. Daisy and Edmond are separated when soldiers take over their home, and Daisy and Piper, her younger cousin, must travel to another place to work. Their experiences of occupation are never kind and Daisy's pain, living without Edmond, is tangible.

Rosoff's writing style is both brilliant and frustrating. Her descriptions are wonderful, as is her ability to portray the emotions of her characters. However, her long sentences and total lack of punctuation for dialogue can be exhausting. Her narrative is deeply engaging and yet a bit unbelievable. The end of the book is dramatic, but too sudden. The book has a raw, unfinished feel about it, yet that somehow adds to the experience of reading it. (Age 14 and over) --John McLay

From Publishers Weekly
This riveting first novel paints a frighteningly realistic picture of a world war breaking out in the 21st century. Told from the point of view of 15-year-old Manhattan native Daisy, the novel follows her arrival and her stay with cousins on a remote farm in England. Soon after Daisy settles into their farmhouse, her Aunt Penn becomes stranded in Oslo and terrorists invade and occupy England. Daisy's candid, intelligent narrative draws readers into her very private world, which appears almost utopian at first with no adult supervision (especially by contrast with her home life with her widowed father and his new wife). The heroine finds herself falling in love with cousin Edmond, and the author credibly creates a world in which social taboos are temporarily erased. When soldiers usurp the farm, they send the girls off separately from the boys, and Daisy becomes determined to keep herself and her youngest cousin, Piper, alive. Like the ripple effects of paranoia and panic in society, the changes within Daisy do not occur all at once, but they have dramatic effects. In the span of a few months, she goes from a self-centered, disgruntled teen to a courageous survivor motivated by love and compassion. How she comes to understand the effects the war has had on others provides the greatest evidence of her growth, as well as her motivation to get through to those who seem lost to war's consequences. Teens may feel that they have experienced a war themselves as they vicariously witness Daisy's worst nightmares. Like the heroine, readers will emerge from the rubble much shaken, a little wiser and with perhaps a greater sense of humanity. Ages 12-up. (Aug.)
Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

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Product Details

• Format: Kindle Edition
• File Size: 169 KB
• Print Length: 224 pages
• Publisher: Wendy Lamb Books (November 30, 2004)
• Sold by: Amazon Digital Services
• Language: English
• ASIN: B000FC2N94
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars See all reviews (95 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #14,567 in Kindle Store (See Bestsellers in Kindle Store)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

51 of 58 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A deep, well-done read., May 21, 2005

By	Tamela Mccann "taminator1" (Nashville, TN USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

This review is from: How I Live Now (Hardcover)

This is the story of Daisy, a fifteen year old who goes to England to live with her cousins in the not-too-distant future. It is not giving anything away to say that Daisy begins a love affair with her cousin Edmond, but all their lives are changed as a war breaks out and England becomes an occupied state. At first the kids are self-sufficient and untouched by the horrors, but as the story develops, shades of World War 2 begin to overcome them as they face separation, deprivation, and ultimate loss. Daisy speaks in a believable voice that takes you into her soul and makes you feel what she does. This one is highly recommended.

19 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars How I live Now, October 11, 2004

By	Jessica (18) (England) - See all my reviews

This review is from: How I Live Now (Hardcover)

The story is enthralling, and it's such a good idea to have it set in a war. Wars seem to be a subject that most people my age are quite interested in, particularly because there are so many wars going on at the moment, and they want to find out what it would really be like to live through one. But I think this war is even more interesting, it's not that I find previous or current wars boring, but that basically everything that could be found out and written about has been, and to invent a new war opens many more possibilities for events, without having to worry about being historically correct. Also it allows the war to be set in England, instead of a far off country that would probably be hard to imagine living in, even if it wasn't during a war.

I love the descriptions of the English country house, it seems a perfect setting, and creates such a contrast to the war. I also like how as Daisy and Piper spend longer away from the house, it becomes a more distant memory, for both them and the reader. There is so much detail about the war and other bad things, I forgot many of the details of the house, and how Daisy spent her first few happy days with her cousins.

By including Daisy's view of herself, and her eating problems, it will include lots of people who feel the same way about their appearance. It makes an interesting kind of side-story, and I liked seeing her growing out of it very slowly and subtly.

When Daisy saw Edmond again, after they were separated to go to different houses, and Edmond ignored her when he first saw her, I was shocked, and really quite sad. It ended the reader's and Daisy's dreams of the perfect life they would have had together both at once, which made me feel very sorry for Daisy. The ending was quite surprising, and at first I resented the fact that the author didn't let it immediately work out with Edmond and Daisy, but now I feel it made it more realistic and interesting. It is a sad, but hopeful ending. It was also good to see that Piper had got on with her life, and she'd found someone to appreciate her.

I like how there are no speech marks, and speech is just written in. It saves a lot of space, and it's an interesting and unusual way of doing it.

I'm not just saying good things about this book because I don't want to say anything negative, but at a first read, I really cannot find much I dislike about the book.

22 of 24 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars I can't stop thinking about this book, August 10, 2005

By	J. Christenbury "bookie" (N.C., USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: How I Live Now (Hardcover)

It's been at least two months since I read How I Live Now, and I still think about it almost daily. I'm definitely an adult - in fact, I have a master's degree in English - and this is one of the most thought-provoking books I've ever read.

Briefly, the plot:
Daisy, our narrator, is not a very admirable character when the novel begins. Sent to rural England to live with her deceased mother's family, Daisy is at first shocked at the conditions of life with her aunt's large family.
Soon after Daisy arrives, her aunt must go on an emergency trip to help with peace negotiations, leaving her children and Daisy alone. Thus begins an idyllic summer - the group at the farm is aware a military force has taken over the country, but specifics are hard to come by, and life goes on as normal in their corner of the world, so by and large they ignore the crisis. With no telephone, no internet, no television or radio, the kids come to enjoy their isolation and Daisy begins a sexual relationship with her cousin Edmond.
The world won't stay away forever, though. Eventually military forces arrive and take the children to allegedly "safe" places, separating the boys and the girls.
Daisy's devastation at losing contact with Edmond fades quickly once she realizes that the war, if that is indeed what it is, has closed in around her and presents a real, personal threat.
Daisy and her young cousin Piper eventually make their way back home, and Daisy leaves the country to return to America through her father's subterfuge. But what she has seen has scarred her forever, and draws her back to the rural English farm.
We also see how quickly war turns children into adults. By novel's end, whiny, spoiled Daisy has become an adult who makes mature decisions. The vivid, live-life-out-loud Edmond has witnessed intense atrocities and drawn into himself like a shell-shocked vet from World War I. There's no time for fantasies and dreams anymore, there's only real life and the imperative to get on with it.

Where it shines:
Despite its twists and turns, the plot takes a back seat in How I Live Now. What struck me, and what has stayed with me, are the details of life during one of our new-fangled post-9/11 wars. Surely this is what that life would be like - No reliable means of contact with the outside world, no trustworthy sources of information, not even knowing who the "enemy" is. What do they believe in? Why are they doing, umm, whatever it is they're doing? Does it matter if the uniformed man walking along the road is one of "us" or one of "them"? Is it safe to let him see you, no matter which side he's on? Not being able to know these things didn't disturb the characters nearly as much as it disturbed me.
How I Live Now left me shaken; I keep trying to tell friends the story so I can illustrate a point with it: How do we know what we know? If we hear a radio address by George Bush, we take it for granted that it is George Bush himself delivering it, despite the fact that numerous stand-up comedians can sound just like him. Or maybe it is him, but someone is holding a gun to his head. If we see him on television speaking, again we take it for granted that it's really our president, when we ought to know by now that there are body doubles aplenty.
I'm not implying that the U.S. has been taken over by some outside element that is either impersonating President Bush or forcing him to act according to their dictates, but if they were, how would we know?
That's what I'm left with after reading How I Live Now.