Meg Rosoff's remarkable first novel, How I Live Now, is one of those rare books that you experience, not merely read. It goes well beyond the confines of being a story because of the reality that Rosoff creates right from the start.
Here we have a writer who makes you believe what she writes. You laugh, find yourself close to tears and everything in between as events unfold and characters you care about are caught up in terrible situations beyond their control. How I Live Now is as gripping and real as fiction ever gets.
How I Live Now begins, like so many novels, with a disaffected teenager uprooted from her home and dumped somewhere else. Fifteen-year-old Daisy is having a tough time at home in New York having to cope with her father's new relationship. Then to make matters worse, she is suddenly packed off to visit relatives in England whom she has never met. She knows her father just wants her out of the way and there is nothing she can do except make the best of a bad situation.
When Daisy arrives in England she is met by her cousin Edmond, who smokes, wears way-out clothes and drives her away in a battered jeep even though he is well underage to have a driving license. Daisy soon finds that the rest of her English family is as unconventional as Edmond. It is clear that there is going to be no time for feeling sorry for herself and Daisy slowly begins to embrace her new life because anything is better than what Dad was forcing on her in New York.
So far, so good. Daisy tells How I Live Now in her own cool, authentic teenage voice, taking in and questioning everything around her. But slowly, Rosoff begins to pull an amazing trick with her story and things shoot off in an unexpected and deeply dangerous direction.
The story is set just a few weeks into the future, and the fragility of the world's political situation is beginning to crack. Soon after Daisy's arrival in England, international tension bursts and war breaks out. At first, none of the conflict touches Daisy and her new-found family, but soon the war is on their doorstep.
How I Live Now takes on a whole new dimension, but Daisy's narration is still centred on herself and what happens to those around her. It is unsettling, disturbing and it throws up all sorts of uneasy questions in the reader's mind. Rosoff's original approach to her story is exhilarating and totally gripping.
