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Cover of How I Live Now by Meg Rosoff

How I Live Now

  • 204 pages · about 3 hours
  • First published 2004
  • 21 editions

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1 About this book

"Every war has turning points and every person too." Fifteen-year-old Daisy is sent from Manhattan to England to visit her aunt and cousins she's never met: three boys near her age, and their little sister. Her aunt goes away on business soon after Daisy arrives. The next day bombs go off as London is attacked and occupied by an unnamed enemy. As power fails, and systems fail, the farm becomes more isolated.

Despite the war, it's a kind of Eden, with no adults in charge and no rules, a place where Daisy's uncanny bond with her cousins grows into something rare and extraordinary. But the war is everywhere, and Daisy and her cousins must lead each other into a world that is unknown in the scariest, most elemental way. A riveting and astonishing story.

Good for readers who want: a love story and a war story.

  • Romance
  • Eating disorders
  • Cousins
  • Family life
  • Farm life
  • War
  • Children's fiction
  • War stories

2 About Meg Rosoff

Born 1956

Meg Rosoff (born 16 October 1956) is an American writer based in London, United Kingdom. She is best known for the novel How I Live Now (Puffin, 2004), which won the Guardian Prize, the Printz Award, the Branford Boase Award and made the Whitbread Awards shortlist. Her second novel, Just in Case (Penguin, 2006), won the annual Carnegie Medal from the British librarians recognising the year's best children's book published in the UK.

Bio adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0)

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