Meg Rosoff’s How I Live Now received a number of awards when it appeared about five years ago. It’s a fine book, but I guess I’m not entirely sure why it won such acclaim.
Living in the near future, 15-year-old Daisy is sent by her father in New York City to live with her cousins in rural England. (Daisy doesn’t get along well with her stepmother, she seems to have an eating disorder, she has spent significant time in therapy, the world is poised on the brink of war—it is for one or more of these reasons, presumably, that her father sends her away.) Her teen-aged cousins are, in Daisy’s own view, an odd assortment. When their mother—Daisy’s Aunt Penn—travels to Oslo (and then becomes stranded there by the outbreak of war), Daisy and her cousins are left to fend for themselves in a sprawling country manor.
Daisy finds herself falling into a sexual relationship with her 14-year-old cousin Edmond. (Eww, gross. I know!) Fortunately for the reader (not so fortunately for love-struck young Daisy), the relationship is quickly broken up when British soldiers take over the family house, sending Daisy and her young cousin Piper to live in a safer, more remote part of the country.
Daisy and Piper soon find themselves alone, though, and resolve to return to the rest of their family. As the two young women trek across the British countryside, struggling to survive, the novel hits its stride.
The character of Daisy has a genuine voice, the novel creates an interesting vision of a future in which small wars inspired by terrorists spread across the globe, and much of the book moves with the pace of a good action story. The ending of How I Live Now definitely disappoints—not because it doesn’t end “happily ever after,” but because it just feels unfocused and rushed. Still, I can imagine that there is a certain segment of young readers who will enjoy this book.
