How I Live Now

July 5, 2004
This riveting first novel paints a frighteningly realistic picture of a world war breaking out in the 21st century. Told from the point of view of 15-year-old Manhattan native Daisy, the novel follows her arrival and her stay with cousins on a remote farm in England. Soon after Daisy settles into their farmhouse, her Aunt Penn becomes stranded in Oslo and terrorists invade and occupy England.
Daisy's candid, intelligent narrative draws readers into her very private world, which appears almost utopian at first with no adult supervision (especially by contrast with her home life with her widowed father and his new wife). The heroine finds herself falling in love with cousin Edmond, and the author credibly creates a world in which social taboos are temporarily erased. When soldiers usurp the farm, they send the girls off separately from the boys, and Daisy becomes determined to keep herself and her youngest cousin, Piper, alive. Like the ripple effects of paranoia and panic in society, the changes within Daisy do not occur all at once, but they have dramatic effects. In the span of a few months, she goes from a self-centered, disgruntled teen to a courageous survivor motivated by love and compassion.
How she comes to understand the effects the war has had on others provides the greatest evidence of her growth, as well as her motivation to get through to those who seem lost to war's consequences. Teens may feel that they have experienced a war themselves as they vicariously witness Daisy's worst nightmares. Like the heroine, readers will emerge from the rubble much shaken, a little wiser and with perhaps a greater sense of humanity. Ages 12-up.

September 1, 2004
Gr 8 Up-Daisy, 15, a troubled New York City teen with a distant father, a wicked (and pregnant) stepmother, and an eating disorder, is sent to England to stay on a rambling farm with her deceased mother's sister's family. It is made up of Aunt Penn "who always has Important Work To Do Related to the Peace Process" and her brood of children: Osbert, 16; 14-year-old twins Isaac and Edmond; and 9-year-old Piper. As the kids spend more and more time together, Daisy warms to them, beginning to tune in to a seemingly psychic bond that the siblings share. When Aunt Penn travels to Oslo, Daisy begins a sexual relationship with Edmond. At the same time, hostile forces invade England. Originally enjoying the freedom of a world that seems to have forgotten them, the cousins are inevitably separated, leaving Piper and Daisy to struggle across the countryside and rejoin the others. Daisy's voice is uneven, being at times teenage vapid, while elsewhere sporting a vocabulary rich with 50-cent words, phrases, and references. In addition, Rosoff barely scratches the surface of the material at hand. At times, this is both intentional and effective (the enemy is never named) but for the most part the dearth of explanation creates insurmountable questions around the basic mechanisms of the plot. There is no explanation of how a small force could take out all communications (including cell phones) and proceed to overrun and to control an entire country. Perhaps even stranger, the ramifications of psychic abilities and underage sexual relationships between first cousins is never addressed.-Douglas P. Davey, Halton Hills Public Libraries, Ontario, Canada

Copyright 2004 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from September 1, 2004
Gr. 8-11. A 15-year-old, contemporary urbanite named Daisy, sent to England to summer with relatives, falls in love with her aunt's "oldy worldy" farm and her soulful cousins--especially Edmond, with whom she forms "the world's most inappropriate case of sexual obsession." Matters veer in a startling direction when terrorists strike while Daisy's aunt is out of the country, war erupts, and soldiers divide the cousins by gender between two guardians. Determined to rejoin Edmond, Daisy and her youngest cousin embark upon a dangerous journey that brings them face to face with horrific violence and undreamt-of deprivation. Just prior to the hopeful conclusion, Rosoff introduces a jolting leap forward in time accompanied by an evocative graphic device that will undoubtedly spark lively discussions. As for the incestuous romance, Daisy and Edmond's separation for most of the novel and the obvious emotional sustenance Daisy draws from their bond sensitively shift the focus away from the relationship's implicit (and potentially discomfiting) physical dimension. More central to the potency of Rosoff's debut, though, is the ominous prognostication of what a third world war might look like, and the opportunity it provides for teens to imagine themselves, like Daisy, exhibiting courage and resilience in roles traditionally occupied by earlier generations.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2004, American Library Association.)

January 1, 2005
Sent to live with four English cousins on their farm, fifteen-year-old New Yorker Daisy is smitten with the pastoral beauty around her, but especially with her cousin Edmond. Their idyllic love is interrupted when an (unnamed) enemy power invades the country. This first novel is intelligent, funny, serious, and sweet; a winning combination of acerbic commentary, innocence, and sober vision.

(Copyright 2005 by The Horn Book, Incorporated, Boston. All rights reserved.)

Starred review from September 1, 2004
This first novel is intelligent, funny, serious, and sweet; a winning combination of acerbic commentary, innocence, and sober vision. Sent from Manhattan to live with four English cousins on their farm, fifteen-year-old Daisy is smitten with the lush, pastoral beauty around her, but especially with her cousin Edmond, who surprises her "in about half a million ways each day." Daisy's and Edmond's idyllic love is interrupted when an unnamed enemy power invades the country (a la Marsden's Tomorrow, When the War Began): the British army confiscates the farm, and the children are split up and evacuated to separate places. As the violence escalates, Daisy and youngest cousin Piper escape their caretakers and make their way home through an uncertain countryside, where fields and woods may yield either carnage or sustenance. Daisy's account, in eccentrically punctuated run-on sentences, has a breathless directness, a mixture of urbane self-mockery and first-time wonder, that is utterly captivating. Through her eyes, we see the practical effects of the occupation -- how civilians rally to bring in the harvest, provide medical care, and even milk cows in the absence of electricity. Refreshingly, Rosoff understates Daisy's transformation from self-absorbed, defensive anorexic to generous, loving hero, but that inner evolution is always apparent in her bracing wit and intense response to beauty, both human and natural. Hilarious, lyrical, and compassionate, this is, literarily and emotionally, deeply satisfying.

(Copyright 2004 by The Horn Book, Incorporated, Boston. All rights reserved.)