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How I Live Now

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Overview

"EVERY WAR HAS turning points and every person too."Fifteen-year-old Daisy is sent from Manhattan to England to visit her aunt and cousins she's never met: three boys near her age, and their little sister. Her aunt goes away on business soon after Daisy arrives.

Editorial Reviews

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. -- PUBLISHERS WEEKLY.

Author Information

Bio of Meg Rosoff

My biography will prove incredibly inspiring to anyone who wasn't born in Beijing or Kathmandu, wasn't sent to school in Switzerland or Peru, didn't marry a diplomat at 19, and doesn't speak 9 languages. I was born in Boston, in 1956, second of four sisters, grew up in the Boston suburbs, went to ordinary suburban schools for most of my youth, and was rejected from Princeton in 1974 so went to Harvard instead. I didn't like Harvard much, but Princeton would have been worse, though I didn't know that then. After three years of thinking 'I've got to get out of here', I applied to art school in London, was accepted for a year studying sculpture, packed a bag and got on a plane. I stayed in a bed and breakfast in Knightsbridge until I found a room in a flat in Camden Town, with an architect who later became my boyfriend. Art school was a disaster (I was obviously a writer not a sculptor, but I didn't know that then, either) but the rest of the year was a revelation. There was an unbelievable amount of fun to be had in London in 1977-78. I'm still reeling. Eventually I returned to the US to finish my degree, moved to New York City, spent ten short years working in publishing and advertising, and then one day quit my job, told all my friends I was going back to London for three months, and have been here ever since. My husband is an English painter and my daughter is a mongrel with her heart in the American suburbs and the accent of a North London fishmonger. After a fifteen-year stint in advertising (which I recommend to no one) my youngest sister died of breast cancer. And I thought if I was going to write a book, I'd better do it soon because life is short.

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Additional Info

Imprint

Wendy Lamb Books

Filesize

428.67 KB

Number of Pages

208

eBook ISBN

9780375890543

Awards

  • Costa Book Awards
  • Galaxy British Book Awards
  • Garden State Teen Book Award
  • Guardian Children's Fiction Prize
  • Los Angeles Times Book Prizes
  • Michael L. Printz Award
  • Quill Awards
  • Young Reader's Choice Award

Excerpt from: How I Live Now by Meg Rosoff

1

My name is Elizabeth but no ones ever called me that. My father took one look at me when I was born and must have thought I had the face of someone dignified and sad like an old-fashioned queen or a dead person, but what I turned out like is plain, not much there to notice. Even my life so far has been plain. More Daisy than Elizabeth from the word go.

But the summer I went to England to stay with my cousins everything changed. Part of that was because of the war, which supposedly changed lots of things, but I cant remember much about life before the war anyway so it doesnt count in my book, which this is.

Mostly everything changed because of Edmond.

And so heres what happened.

2

Im coming off this plane, and Ill tell you why that is later, and landing at London airport and Im looking around for a middle-aged kind of woman who Ive seen in pictures whos my Aunt Penn. The photographs are out of date, but she looked like the type ho would wear a big necklace and flat shoes, and maybe some kind of narrow dress in black or gray. But Im just guessing since the pictures only showed her face.

Anyway, Im looking and looking and everyones leaving and theres no signal on my phone and Im thinking Oh great, Im going to be abandoned at the airport so thats two countries they dont want me in, when I notice everyones gone except this kid who comes up to me and says You must be Daisy. And when I look relieved he does too and says Im Edmond.

Hello Edmond, I said, nice to meet you, and I look at him hard to try to get a feel for what my new life with my cousins might be like.

Now let me tell you what he looks like before I forget because its not exactly what youd expect from your average fourteen-year-old what with the CIGARETTE and hair that looked like he cut it himself with a hatchet in the dead of night, but aside from that hes exactly like some kind of mutt, you know the ones you see at the dog shelter who are kind of hopeful and sweet and put their nose straight into your hand when they meet you with a certain kind of dignity and you know from that second that youre going to take him home? Well thats him.

Only he took me home.