Book Title: How I Live Now
Author: Meg Rosoff
Date Started: September 29th 2013
Date Completed: September 30th 2013
Genres: Dystopian, Romance, Adventure, Thriller
Rating: Five stars
Review:
The reviews on the back of my edition of this book were exactly right for me. Our protagonist could indeed 'persuade me to believe almost anything' after five pages (Mark Haddon, author of The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time). And, believe it or not 'I put it down with tears on my face' (Julie Myerson, Guardian).
Daisy wants as little to do with her father and new girlfriend as they seem to want to do with her. So when she's sent to England on a 'holiday' she isn't entirely dreading it, but she doesn't particularly want to go either. But it turns out that her cousins are a lot better than she expected, and definitely better than her step-mother and soon-to-be-little-sister. And then the bomb goes off in the middle of London, and Daisy and her cousins end up stranded in the middle of the English countryside on their own. Not that that's a bad thing. At first. And then the soldiers come and it seems Daisy and the others aren't allowed to look after themselves as they had done so well before, and soon it seems not only is the war stomping into their home and using their land, but also splitting them apart in the most brutal way possible.
The writing confused me. Not because it was badly written - on the contrary, I absolutely loved the style and I found it quick to get through, but also detailed enough for me to read between the lines as I went and really understand some of the unsaid things in the story. But the reason why I was confused was the fact that, in theory, I should hate the way it's written. There's hardly any punctuation (with speech being included without speech marks, and only commas etc) and important words/phrases are set out with capital letters. I usually hate this kind of thing, because I find it unprofessional or perhaps a little childish, but actually it worked so well for the story, I fell right into it so quickly that I didn't even notice it for a long time. I felt that this was a way to show us how childish and innocent Daisy actually was at the start of the book, and the development of this writing as the book progressed also showed Daisy's progression as a child to an adult.
I also loved the brutal honesty that was included in the narrative. Part of the reason I felt I could connect with Daisy so well was the fact that she was very open about the fact that she did have issues, and it wasn't even hinted that she was completely aware why they were there. Having gone through similar things myself, I know that there is that kind of confusion behind the thoughts, and therefore there's an almost hidden anxiety to mention such things. This was really well put across by Rosoff, and I think it really brought her protagonist to life.
The story (and the characters) was what really worked for me. I've read a lot of dystopian/war fiction, and I'm starting to read a lot of contemporary stuff too, but so far I haven't come across something quite like this. I'm not even sure you would categorise How I Live Now as contemporary, but it was so realistic to me, I felt it should be put into that genre. I believed everything that was happening and I believed everything each of the characters felt along the way.
The different twists and turns this book went down were amazing. So much happened in a very small book, and you could feel the time passing with them, rather than feeling disconnected from the characters for however many months before rejoining them again.
The ending was not was I expected, and if you read my reviews you'll know I very rarely cry at books - but I cried here. It's definitely a bitter sweet ending, and I think it was actually more painful than some other alternatives could have been, but I truly think it was worth it for the pure quality and feeling it left me with. It was heartbreaking, but it was real, and it tied up the loose ends so well. There was a sense of completion, but also a reluctance to do so; I felt so close to the characters that I didn't want to leave them when their story ended.
There's only really two characters that are around for the majority of the book: Daisy and Piper. Yet we learn so much about the rest of them as well, I feel like they're all really important characters, each giving their own detail to the story.
Daisy was amazing. Truly amazing. I've rarely connected with characters as well as I connected with Daisy. She was very blunt, honest, rude and funny. There was a kind of nature around her that made me think of a lot of people I know: the 'carefree' attitude that brushes each little thing off when they are thinking about them inside. I can't really say more about her because I don't know how. My advice: read the book.
Piper actually agitated me at first: not annoyed, but agitated. She was too perfect and too innocent. But then I realised that was the point, and that she needed to be that pure in order to really show her change as she lived through the war with Daisy. I also liked the fact that, although Daisy was looking after her a lot of the time, she was also looking up to her, and almost cowering in her friends' shadow.
Edmond was great. The way his story developed was both heartbreaking and genius. I connected with him almost as much as Daisy, which made it harder for me as a reader later on. Considering he was in it for quite a short time, I felt I grew to know him incredibly well and I really felt the chemistry between him and Daisy - whether they're cousins or not.
I liked Isaac because he was like the odd one out; he never quite fitted in and he always was aware of things going on around him. I didn't really feel the twin connection between him and Edmond, but I don't think that mattered so much, since all four of the siblings were very close to begin with.
I expected Osbert to be in more; or at least for him to be mentioned more. If I were his sister, I'd be very annoyed with him for leaving his younger siblings to pretty much fend for themselves in a war stricken country. Maybe I missed a little bit more of his reason to leave because I was caught up in the rest of the story, but I still would have been pretty annoyed either way.
Overall, the pace was really good for me. It's a fairly short book and, to go through everything we did go through with the characters, everything had to be given to us pretty quickly and close together. Maybe sometimes it did feel rushed, but in a way that worked because it gave us an idea of how everything merged together for the characters and let us understand how confusing it was for them a little bit more than we might have otherwise.
There was one slow part that I feel I have to mention: about three quarters of the way in, when Daisy and Piper are in the woods, all that is talked about for around three or four chapters is the food they ate and how they had to spent all their time doing it to survive. I do appreciate that they had to spend all their time finding the right food so they could eat safely, but really long descriptions of it did get a little bit old at one point. Luckily, this didn't last very long, and we were back to the action in good time for the finale.
I absolutely loved How I Live Now. I was eager to read it at first, and then I fell right into the story straight away, and I didn't want to put it down the entire time I was reading it. I think it's a great book that's not only engaging to read, but also quite informative and insightful to how real people feel in scarily real situations.
It's a contemporary dystopian that's got a wonderful romance in it, and a whole lot of other stuff in between. I'd recommend it to anyone who likes the sound of any of that - and I know it's better than the film's going to be (because I can already tell they're going to change it a ridiculous amount).
Image Source - http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51xW%2BM7GYyL.jpg
The reviews on the back of my edition of this book were exactly right for me. Our protagonist could indeed 'persuade me to believe almost anything' after five pages (Mark Haddon, author of The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time). And, believe it or not 'I put it down with tears on my face' (Julie Myerson, Guardian).
Daisy wants as little to do with her father and new girlfriend as they seem to want to do with her. So when she's sent to England on a 'holiday' she isn't entirely dreading it, but she doesn't particularly want to go either. But it turns out that her cousins are a lot better than she expected, and definitely better than her step-mother and soon-to-be-little-sister. And then the bomb goes off in the middle of London, and Daisy and her cousins end up stranded in the middle of the English countryside on their own. Not that that's a bad thing. At first. And then the soldiers come and it seems Daisy and the others aren't allowed to look after themselves as they had done so well before, and soon it seems not only is the war stomping into their home and using their land, but also splitting them apart in the most brutal way possible.
The writing confused me. Not because it was badly written - on the contrary, I absolutely loved the style and I found it quick to get through, but also detailed enough for me to read between the lines as I went and really understand some of the unsaid things in the story. But the reason why I was confused was the fact that, in theory, I should hate the way it's written. There's hardly any punctuation (with speech being included without speech marks, and only commas etc) and important words/phrases are set out with capital letters. I usually hate this kind of thing, because I find it unprofessional or perhaps a little childish, but actually it worked so well for the story, I fell right into it so quickly that I didn't even notice it for a long time. I felt that this was a way to show us how childish and innocent Daisy actually was at the start of the book, and the development of this writing as the book progressed also showed Daisy's progression as a child to an adult.
I also loved the brutal honesty that was included in the narrative. Part of the reason I felt I could connect with Daisy so well was the fact that she was very open about the fact that she did have issues, and it wasn't even hinted that she was completely aware why they were there. Having gone through similar things myself, I know that there is that kind of confusion behind the thoughts, and therefore there's an almost hidden anxiety to mention such things. This was really well put across by Rosoff, and I think it really brought her protagonist to life.
The story (and the characters) was what really worked for me. I've read a lot of dystopian/war fiction, and I'm starting to read a lot of contemporary stuff too, but so far I haven't come across something quite like this. I'm not even sure you would categorise How I Live Now as contemporary, but it was so realistic to me, I felt it should be put into that genre. I believed everything that was happening and I believed everything each of the characters felt along the way.
The different twists and turns this book went down were amazing. So much happened in a very small book, and you could feel the time passing with them, rather than feeling disconnected from the characters for however many months before rejoining them again.
The ending was not was I expected, and if you read my reviews you'll know I very rarely cry at books - but I cried here. It's definitely a bitter sweet ending, and I think it was actually more painful than some other alternatives could have been, but I truly think it was worth it for the pure quality and feeling it left me with. It was heartbreaking, but it was real, and it tied up the loose ends so well. There was a sense of completion, but also a reluctance to do so; I felt so close to the characters that I didn't want to leave them when their story ended.
There's only really two characters that are around for the majority of the book: Daisy and Piper. Yet we learn so much about the rest of them as well, I feel like they're all really important characters, each giving their own detail to the story.
Daisy was amazing. Truly amazing. I've rarely connected with characters as well as I connected with Daisy. She was very blunt, honest, rude and funny. There was a kind of nature around her that made me think of a lot of people I know: the 'carefree' attitude that brushes each little thing off when they are thinking about them inside. I can't really say more about her because I don't know how. My advice: read the book.
Piper actually agitated me at first: not annoyed, but agitated. She was too perfect and too innocent. But then I realised that was the point, and that she needed to be that pure in order to really show her change as she lived through the war with Daisy. I also liked the fact that, although Daisy was looking after her a lot of the time, she was also looking up to her, and almost cowering in her friends' shadow.
Edmond was great. The way his story developed was both heartbreaking and genius. I connected with him almost as much as Daisy, which made it harder for me as a reader later on. Considering he was in it for quite a short time, I felt I grew to know him incredibly well and I really felt the chemistry between him and Daisy - whether they're cousins or not.
I liked Isaac because he was like the odd one out; he never quite fitted in and he always was aware of things going on around him. I didn't really feel the twin connection between him and Edmond, but I don't think that mattered so much, since all four of the siblings were very close to begin with.
I expected Osbert to be in more; or at least for him to be mentioned more. If I were his sister, I'd be very annoyed with him for leaving his younger siblings to pretty much fend for themselves in a war stricken country. Maybe I missed a little bit more of his reason to leave because I was caught up in the rest of the story, but I still would have been pretty annoyed either way.
Overall, the pace was really good for me. It's a fairly short book and, to go through everything we did go through with the characters, everything had to be given to us pretty quickly and close together. Maybe sometimes it did feel rushed, but in a way that worked because it gave us an idea of how everything merged together for the characters and let us understand how confusing it was for them a little bit more than we might have otherwise.
There was one slow part that I feel I have to mention: about three quarters of the way in, when Daisy and Piper are in the woods, all that is talked about for around three or four chapters is the food they ate and how they had to spent all their time doing it to survive. I do appreciate that they had to spend all their time finding the right food so they could eat safely, but really long descriptions of it did get a little bit old at one point. Luckily, this didn't last very long, and we were back to the action in good time for the finale.
I absolutely loved How I Live Now. I was eager to read it at first, and then I fell right into the story straight away, and I didn't want to put it down the entire time I was reading it. I think it's a great book that's not only engaging to read, but also quite informative and insightful to how real people feel in scarily real situations.
It's a contemporary dystopian that's got a wonderful romance in it, and a whole lot of other stuff in between. I'd recommend it to anyone who likes the sound of any of that - and I know it's better than the film's going to be (because I can already tell they're going to change it a ridiculous amount).
Image Source - http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51xW%2BM7GYyL.jpg
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