Rosoff, Meg. How I live now.ROSOFF, Meg. How I live now. Random House, Wendy Lamb Books. 194p. c2004. 0-385-74677-6. $16.95. JS* KLIATT reviews a lot of YA novels, and when we pick up a new book to read and a narrative voice is immediately compelling and original, it's a fantastic treat. Daisy, in How I Live Now, is just such a voice, thanks to the skill of Meg Rosoff in this, her first novel. I did think of the narrator NARRATOR. A pleader who draws narrs serviens narrator, a sergeant at law. Fleta, 1. 2, c. 37. Obsolete. in the Australian series about teenagers surviving when their country is invaded by a mysterious enemy (The Tomorrow Series by John Marsden). Because, soon after Daisy arrives in England to visit her cousins, war breaks out and she and her cousins are separated from any adults in their family and must survive somehow. Daisy (age 14 during most of the period of the novel) has left a troubled family life behind in New York New York, state, United States New York, Middle Atlantic state of the United States. It is bordered by Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and the Atlantic Ocean (E), New Jersey and Pennsylvania (S), Lakes Erie and Ontario and the Canadian province of , and one of the effects of that is her anorexia anorexia /an·orex·ia/ (-rek´se-ah) lack or loss of appetite for food. anorexia nervo´sa . She is accustomed to starving starve v. starved, starv·ing, starves v.intr. 1. To suffer or die from extreme or prolonged lack of food. 2. Informal To be hungry. 3. To suffer from deprivation. herself. Over the months of the war, when starvation starvation, condition in which deprivation of food has forced the body to feed on itself. Causes are famine, fasting, malnutrition, or abnormalities of the mucosal lining of the digestive system. is no longer a choice but a fact of life, she sees food differently. This is just one of the themes, however. The most dramatic connection Daisy makes is falling in love with Edmond, her cousin. They are passionately in love. While not explaining the sex graphically, it is clear that Daisy and Edmond are united physically and emotionally; and when they are separated, Daisy can feel Edmond's presence in her mind. In the final chapters of the book, six years later, when the war is subsiding sub·side intr.v. sub·sid·ed, sub·sid·ing, sub·sides 1. To sink to a lower or normal level. 2. To sink or settle down, as into a sofa. 3. To sink to the bottom, as a sediment. 4. , Daisy and Edmond find one another again even though he has been nearly destroyed by the violence he has witnessed--and he is in a fury. Daisy has to find a way to connect with him, facing his rage somehow. Without sentiment, their reunion is heart-wrenchingly dramatic. Daisy is an unforgettable heroine--vulnerable and flawed, yes, but fiercely loving and tough as well. Claire Rosser, KLIATT |
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