How I Live Now (Meg Rosoff)

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         Daisy's father and loathsome stepmother have sent her to live with her Aunt Penn and cousins (Osbert, Isaac, Edmond, and Piper) in the English countryside.  She quickly adapts to life with her strange relatives, who feel more like family than Daisy's own father does.  In an unfortunate turn of events, war breaks out when Aunt Penn is abroad.  The cousins are on their own as violence and fear are spreading like the plague.  Together, they try to survive as the war gets worse and an unorthodox romance blossoms.  But when Daisy and Piper are separated from the boys, it seems like their chances of survival are slim to none.  

         

         Nearly two weeks after reading this book, my thoughts on it have changed slightly.  I was driven to give it three stars based on the punctuation (or lack thereof), which was hard to work with.  At first I read the text as written, but I quickly realized that was a bad approach.  The reader has to insert their own punctuation and read in a slow, poetic way.  On the whole, though, I found How I Live Now to be strangely addictive, and I ended up getting very little work done while I had the book within arm's reach.  For those who don't have patience for odd and unique styles of writing, it's probably not a good choice.  Having put a little distance between myself and How I Live Now, it might be closer to a four-star rating.   

Rating: 3/5

Completed: March 14, 2012