Review Detail

How I Live Now is the sort of teenaged Daisy, who is flown across the pond from New York to her Aunt Penn's home in rural England.

In her new bucolic setting, she meets her eccentric cousins: young "mystical creature" Piper, the fourteen-year-old twins Edmund and Isaac and sixteen-year-old Osbert with his high and mighty attitude. While on a trip to Oslo, Norway, Aunt Penn leaves the children home alone and what begins as a carefree, no-parents, free-for-all soon falls in on itself as an unnamed Enemy attacks London and the children are cut off from the world. Stuck in a world gone mad, Daisy must try to navigate her new reality, seperated from her cousins with young Piper in tow.

I really enjoyed this book. It has a lot of heart, and a strong character telling a serious with humor and honestly. This is a story of war that never names the enemy. It's a story about love in it's most naive, pure form. Daisy and Edmund's relationship is at first surprising but then endearing. The hardships and violence that the characters endure will stay with you long after you close the book and I can almost promise you that you'll be passing this on to others.

How I Live Now was first suggested to me by my high school librarian. I read it, loved it, bought my own copy and can honestly say that I haven't stopped reading it yet. This book won my heart with it's own off-kiltered perfection, and I'm sure it will win yours.