How I Live Now

Module 3, SLIS 5420

Summary

"Daisy" (really Elizabeth, but she hates the name) finds herself in present day England, sent away by a family that seems indifferent, just in time for a war that breaks out and strands her from her native New York City, her cell phone, and her email connections to friends. Among her cousins on an English farm, they are on their own and without supervision to live through a war that has isolated them from such things as regular access to outside food and reliable information. She falls in love with her cousin Edmond and they are separated by the British Army under orders from an unidentified occupying force. She longs to return to the farm and be with Edmond again, and escapes to do just that, but upon returning to the farm, is dragged back to her family in America. Her efforts to return to the farm help her to grow as she must not only get herself back, but also her young cousin Piper. After the war, she returns to England and tries to repair her relationship with an Edmond broken by his experiences in the war.

Bibliographic Information

Rosoff, Meg. How I Live Now. Wendy Lamb Books, Random House Children's Books. 2004. ISBN: 0-385-74677-6

My Thoughts

Daisy comes across in this book as a very real character. She is thin and is sensitive to the remarks of others about her eating habits (read anorexia) but that is not really thrown in the face of the reader. In the course of the book, faced with real starvation, Daisy comes to value food. She is troubled by her strange telepathic relationship with Edmond and her need to be with him. It drives her need to return to the farm and reunite the family. She feels closer to her cousins in England than she ever did to her family in the US, and so she returns after the war to help Edmond find himself again. The language used in the book is believable as coming from someone of Daisy's age and experience as are her thoughts and motivations as people her age are a strange mixture of child and adult. While her relationship with her cousin is troubling from an incest point of view, and the relationship develops into the physical, it is not terribly graphic, unlike some other works for this age group. Many of Daisy's thoughts are related in capital letters to give them emphasis.

Reviews

Gr 8 Up- Daisy, 15, a troubled New York City teen with a distant father, a wicked (and pregnant) stepmother, and an eating disorder, is sent to England to stay on a rambling farm with her deceased mother's sister's family. It is made up of Aunt Penn "who always has Important Work To Do Related to the Peace Process" and her brood of children: Osbert, 16; 14-year-old twins Isaac and Edmond; and 9-year-old Piper. As the kids spend more and more time together, Daisy warms to them, beginning to tune in to a seemingly psychic bond that the siblings share. When Aunt Penn travels to Oslo, Daisy begins a sexual relationship with Edmond. At the same time, hostile forces invade England. Originally enjoying the freedom of a world that seems to have forgotten them, the cousins are inevitably separated, leaving Piper and Daisy to struggle across the countryside and rejoin the others. Daisy's voice is uneven, being at times teenage vapid, while elsewhere sporting a vocabulary rich with 50-cent words, phrases, and references. In addition, Rosoff barely scratches the surface of the material at hand. At times, this is both intentional and effective (the enemy is never named) but for the most part the dearth of explanation creates insurmountable questions around the basic mechanisms of the plot. There is no explanation of how a small force could take out all communicatins (including cell phones) and proceeed to overrun and to control an entire country. Perhaps even stranger, the ramifications of psychic abilities and underage sexual relationships between fiirst cousins is never addressed.

Davey, Douglas, P. Booklist. September 1, 2004.

Gr 8 Up- Impending war, parental rejection, and anorexia are Daisy's concerns as she steps off the plane in England where she's been sent to stay with her Aunt Pen and her four cousins. The 15-year-old has landed in a chaotic but supportive country household where she is immediately intrigued by her cousin Edmund.In this novel (Wendy Lamb Books, 2004), Meg Rosoff explores what happens when war leaves these five youngsters to fend for themselves. There are the hardships of finding food and the loss of their mother, but there is also freedom and unexpected tenderness that evolves into an intense physical relationship between Daisy and Edmund. When the two are parted, Daisy takes charge of her youngest cousin, Piper, and the two young women set off to find Edmund and his twin Isaac. What they discover is a brutal massacre but not their kin. Finally returning to the family home, the two girls spend every waking minute trying to survive until Daisy's dad forcibly extricates her from England. It's many hears before all of them are reunited. (misspellings intentionally duplicated from original source, KP)

Wysocki, Cora J. School Library Journal. August 1, 2005.

Awards

Booklist Editor's Choice - Books for Youth

Michael L. Printz Award

YALSA Best Books for Young Adults

Suggestions for Use in Library

This would be a good discussion opener for the topics of incest and the genetic difficulties that might occur because of it. Also, it might be used to discuss anorexia. Finally this book could be paired with Lord of the Flies to discuss behavior without parental control.