How I Live Now by Meg Rosoff

Fifteen-year-old Daisy, the narrator of this story, is sent from New York to England to spend the summer with her maternal aunt and her cousins. Daisy’s mother died when she was born, and Daisy feels unwanted by her father and his new wife. When she arrives in England she’s picked up at the airport by her cousin Edmond, with whom she quickly develops a connection so strong she often feels he’s reading her mind. She also quickly grows to love her aunt Penn and her cousins Piper and Isaac.

Shortly after Daisy’s arrival, a war begins. Her aunt is out of the country when it happens, so for a while Daisy and her cousins are left to live an idyllic life, roaming the countryside, swimming in the river, sleeping in the barn at night, and generally not being told what to do. They manage to ignore the war for some time, but the fact that they're unsupervised is eventually discovered. They are separated, and begin to truly experience the consequences of war.

I absolutely loved this book. I think my favourite thing about it is the writing. Daisy is a wonderful narrator, and there’s so much in both what she says and what she isn’t saying. I wouldn’t exactly call her unreliable, but you can tell from the beginning that there are things she is keeping to herself. This changes as the story progresses. Daisy’s honesty and confidence increase, and the writing style changes to reflect this.

For example, the book is divided in two parts. In the first part, which is most of the book, there are barely any commas, and Daisy sounds almost desperately urgent. In the second part, however, normal punctuation is resumed, and Daisy sounds much more self-assured. All the things she went through allowed her to realize who she is, what she loves, where she belongs. And her voice shows that.

This is partially a story about war, but it’s so full of tenderness and love. We are never given any details about the war, and in this case I don’t think it’s so much because Daisy is not telling us but because she, as well as the rest of the characters, are not quite sure what’s going on. And this makes sense, because what matters for the story is not the specificities of war, but its consequences for the lives of ordinary people. And those are remarkably similar no matter the specific causes.

So more than about war, How I live Now is about love and survival and growing up and learning to live with what was lost, with what was seen, with what can no longer be helped. I found the ending absolutely beautiful. It added so much to my appreciation of what was already a lovely book. Since Daisy is the narrator, I don’t think it’s a spoiler to say that she survives the war. And with that in mind, I’ll share this wonderful passage from the very ending, which sums up what is for me at the core of the book and doesn’t give anything away:

…saved from the ravages of war by stubbornness and ignorance and an insatiable hunger for love.

Other favourite passages:

It was the first time in as long as I could remember that hunger wasn’t a punishment or a crime or a weapon or a form of self-destruction.
It was simply a way of being in love.
Sometimes I thought hours had passed when really it was minutes. Sometimes we fell asleep and then woke up to finish where we’d left off. Sometimes I felt like I was being consumed from within like a person with one of those freak diseases where you digest your own stomach. And sometimes we had to stop, just because we were raw and exhausted and still humming humming humming with something we didn’t even have the strength left to do anything about.

I was Piper’s guardian now and I thought I’d better act like it and make it clear to her that she was safe with me no matter what. And the thought made me fierce and strong like a mother wildebeest and all of a sudden I knew where people got the strength to pick up cars with babies lying under them which I always thought was made up.

If you haven’t been in a war and are wondering how long it takes to get used to losing everything you think you need or love, I can tell you the answer is no time at all.

After that day, I could barely enter the garden without a huge effort of will. The air was suffocating, charged, the hungry plants sucking at the earth with their ferocious appetites. You could almost watch them grow, pressing their fat green tongues up through the black earth. They emerged selfish and starving, gasping for air.

Other Blog Reviews:
The Hidden Side of a Leaf
The Written World
Leafing Through Life
Out of the Blue
Bending Bookshelves
A Striped Armchair
Bold Blue Adventure
In Spring it is the Dawn
Some Reads
The Written Word
Presenting Lenore
The Compulsive Reader
Adventures in Multiplicity
Miss Print
“Fiddle-de-dee’s not English”
Valentina's Room
Jenny's Books
Ink and Paper
In Search of Giants
Bart's Bookshelf
Tip of the Iceberg
where troubles melt like lemon drops
The Bluestocking Society

(Please let me know if I missed yours.)