04/19/06
Live on CD
Another trip to visit the out-laws, another book on CD. This time it was Meg Rosoff's first novel, How I Live Now. I knew nothing of the book when I picked it up at the library; from reading the back cover I thought it sounded interesting. I was surprised to find out after listening to it that this is actually classified as a 'young adult' novel. I wouldn’t want my 13-year-old nephew reading this book, but I’m not in charge of novel labeling.
Daisy is a 15-year-old girl from Manhattan who is sent by her father and "evil stepmother" to live with her relatives she's never met in England. Daisy ends up grooving right in with her three male cousins and younger female cousin. They have a strange bond where they can almost read each other’s thoughts. Her Aunt leaves the children alone while she goes away on business. She is unable to return when a bomb goes off in a train station and all travel is shut down. At first, the children love the freedom and being in charge. Daisy even falls in love with one of her cousins, Edmund. Their fun soon turns to misery when England is occupied but an unknown aggressor and they are forced to separate. Daisy and Piper, her female cousin, spend their time trying to make it back to the boys.
The novel starts off light and airy with Daisy as a selfish girl who uses food as a weapon by starving herself to get her way. As the novel progresses, Daisy shows more and more responsibility and begins to think of others instead of herself.
Rosoff does a great job of showing Daisy's change in a subtle, gradual way. Daisy talks and acts like a teenager, which is sometimes hard to do.
A great example of Daisy acting like a true teenager is her constant exaggeration; she cites that she had to travel 100 thousand miles from New York to London. She also shows herself as a little unreliable in the fact that the train bomb killed 7 or 70 thousand people. To Daisy, what affects her is important and she doesn't care about what is going on in the rest of the world, which is evident in her sketchy details of the war.
By the end of the novel, Daisy has grown up, not just in age, but also mentally. She no longer uses starving herself to get attention but rather understands the importance of nourishment. The language changes and is much darker than in the beginning. This is a perfect example of a coming of age story.
I
must say that Rosoff must be a genius because she is able to make an incestuous
relationship seem perfectly normal. Besides the incest, there are a few
disturbing war-related scenes which can some times be a little stomach
churning, but help to convey the seriousness of the situation.
I enjoyed listening to this book. The narrator had a great voice and I
thought she was perfect as Daisy. The novel is actually written without
too much concern for grammar or punctuation (like a teenager), which can be
very frustrating at times, so I think this is a great novel to get on CD.
So go ahead and plan that road trip!
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