This month we hear from young readers at the Debden Park High School Book Chat Group and two adult Bristol groups on the acclaimed crossover novel How I Live Now by Meg Rosoff which can be enjoyed by adults and children alike.
The Debden Park High School Book Chat Group
The Fernbank Culture Club
The Sawday's Book Group
The Debden Park High School Book Chat Group
Our group is still very much in an embryonic stage. We were conceived as a result of this year’s Carnegie Shadowing. Having finished our six shortlisted books and cast our vote (not for the winning novel, I might add) we were left with the feeling of having enjoyed the experience but were wondering 'What comes next?'
The answer to that question was 'Book Chat', formed from the nucleus of the year 8 Carnegie Shadowers plus a few extra pupils from other year groups who share our interest in books.
We obtain our multiple copies with the help of Essex Libraries and the lovely Wendy from Loughton. To date we have read The Whispering Road (Livi Michael) and Artemis Fowl (Eoin Colfer). Next month’s choice is The Lovely Bones (Alice Sebold), being the first title to be chosen by one of the pupils who will in future be taking it in turns to suggest the monthly read.
The opportunity to read and review How I Live Now has given a terrific boost to our new group. It is a crossover novel written by Meg Rosoff. The story is told by Daisy, a teenage American girl, who comes to England to stay with her Aunt Penn and her four children whom she has never met before. We soon understand that all is not well with Daisy’s home life and she quickly warms to her new found family, forming an immediate attachment to Edmund who seems able to read her innermost thoughts.
Daisy loves life in England on her family’s farm but changes are in store. Her Aunt leaves the country to attend a conference and the war that has been hinted at in the earlier passages finally breaks out. It is at this stage that we realise that the novel is set 'some time in the future'. For a while the children’s idyllic rustic life continues with Daisy’s relationship with Edmund deepening.
However, 'the authorities' eventually chance upon this situation of minors fending for themselves and the children are split up, with Daisy and her young cousin, Piper, being separated from the boys.
As the story continues we learn further details of Daisy’s past life and anxieties. We share in her experiences as she struggles to protect Piper and survive the horrors of the invasion and its aftermath.
Discussion of the book led to one of our liveliest meetings.
Most of us found it was at first difficult to pinpoint the period when the story was taking place but felt this vagueness was deliberate and added to the ambience of the novel.
The relationship between the two cousins caused a lot of controversy as did the rather colourful language. However, we decided that you cannot help who you fall in love with. Also there were no words we had not heard before and they were used in an appropriate context. In fact, such situations do happen in life and teenagers do use this type of language so it added an air of authenticity to the characters.
One aspect that we found riveting was the survival tactics the girls employed. We thought we had learned a great deal about how to look after ourselves in such situations.
We all became involved with the characters and felt particularly attached to Piper and Daisy, admiring the latter as she grows in strength in her attempt to protect her younger cousin.
We felt the storyline was unusual in so many different ways and none of us had read a book like this before. We became engrossed as the mysteries gradually unravelled and none of us was able to predict the ending which, with hindsight, we felt was the only one possible.
In conclusion, we felt most teenagers would enjoy How I Live Now. They would be able to identify with the situations portrayed and we would certainly recommend it as a powerful and thought provoking novel. More please, Ms Rosoff!
The Fernbank Culture Club
The Fernbank Culture Club (above) comprises six members who have been meeting regularly since New Year’s Eve 2004. We all enjoy reading, films, theatre, music and walking. We meet monthly in Fernbank Road to watch a film and our post-film discussions often embrace books/theatre/music. Four of us are in our 50s, two in their 60s. Three occupy senior positions in Social Services, two are teachers and one is a retired computer software MD.
Lucy
What struck me most when I first read this book was its originality: a group of young people living together in an unknown war situation with all familiar boundaries gone – including adult care. Yes, it does try to encompass too many issues too superficially – love, death, anorexia, sex – you name it! But, despite this, for me there is a poignancy about the book, particularly in the friendship that develops between the central character and her younger cousin when they set off on their own. There is also a surreal aspect to it depicted through the timelessness of the anarchic situation. I liked the fact that one could not predict which direction the book was going to take. Even if the story was unconvincing at times I admired Rosoff’s written style which was pithy and very readable.
Jane
The backdrop of the war was ingenious and brought the reality of war into the comfort of the everyday. The relationships veered from being very powerful and real to being contrived (particularly the ending).. I found it gripping.
Ken
I enjoyed the book and found it a good read; charming though naïve. The backdrop of the war was fascinating. The concept of this type of war is credible after 9/11: an unheard of war by unknown people for uncertain reason was believable and gave depth to the story. The relationships were not explored, but left a feeling of how young people experience each other in a war setting. The characters were sometimes rather cardboard although, again, this reflected well how young people see and experience the older generation.
The Sawdays Book Group
The Sawday's Book Group (minus one - Nicola). From left to right, Maria, Jackie, Jo, Kate, Siobhan
In the group of six we were divided - three didn’t like the book (although one of these did until a third of the way through) and three loved it.
All agreed that it was original, different and challenging. The mysterious war was dark and disturbing. We all realised that any future wars may be like this - against an unknown enemy, with unwritten rules - and how unnerving it would be for a generation so dependent on electronic communication to suddenly not know what was happening or have any way of finding out. Everyone was plunged into a very levelling ignorance.
We all agreed, too, that the issue of Daisy’s anorexia was deftly handled. Rosoff alludes so gently to the issue that it’s a while before you are sure that Daisy IS anorexic. Then once you have caught up, she swiftly spills all the beans telling you how useless everybody had been in ‘curing’ it - brought up in a Manhattan full of anxious, seemingly indulgent, Manhattanites who were ALL in therapy, Daisy is palpably relieved to land in England where no one seems at all interested in the fact that she doesn’t eat and is painfully thin. Even she, the teen who can be stereotypically short on humour, has to laugh when, during the war and when everyone else was, for the first time in their lives, Going Short, she came into her own; she was Good at Starving.
And the capitals, often used to stress how Very Patronising Adults Can Be, were amusing to half of us and irritating to the rest. They did disappear when the war started - when Daisy had to confront her own mortality and assume total responsibility for the survival of her much-younger cousin Piper.
One of the last capitalised quotes was: “Elena was what you might call a Big Girl and you could tell she wanted to ask me about being so thin but being English she would rather have sawed her own legs off. I could tell she was thinking If Only I Had Her Self Control.”
With huge irony, the war was the cure for Daisy’s anorexia. After all the trauma of survival she says “Somewhere along the line I’d lost the will not to eat. And I wouldn’t be good old Daisy if I didn’t get my appetite back just when everyone else in the world was learning how to starve. Partly the idea of wanting to be thin in a world full of people dying from lack of food struck even me as stupid.”
Could this be a crossover novel, a la The Curious Incident? Yes said three, no said three. Bits of it are grim but if this has been out there as a teen novel, adults should be encouraged to brave its rawness, too.
And some individual comments:
Maria
Perhaps it’s something to do with being an only child, but I never particularly enjoyed teenage fiction when I was a teenager and I didn’t expect that I would enjoy this. I had low expectations of the book but was really surprised, though, that I really enjoyed it. It was engaging and for me had an atmosphere of Life is Beautiful about it.
Jackie
Rosoff dealt deftly with some big issues - underage sex (that went hand-in-hand with the central love story), war, anorexia, and depression - with a subtle and bravely-light touch. I found the story magical, grim, haunting and funny. I felt enormous fondness for Daisy; I’ve often found myself thinking about her since; I loved her bluntness and directness. I nearly passed out from overwhelming tenderness during the passage where Daisy’s dead mum’s sister talks to Daisy about what her mum was like, so desperate was Daisy for the slimmest sliver of anyone’s memory of her mum.
Nicola
This book deals with some heavy themes: anorexia, under-age sex, death, war and the breakdown of society. And yet because we are hearing about them through the thoughts of the central character and she is only a teenager there is a safety net. The real horror of what is going on around the character is subjugated by her feelings of growing attraction for her brooding cousin. In other words, what teenagers really care about is sex!
There is a slight frustration when reading it. Facts are flimsy at best, a reflection of what really does happen to communications in war time, but our heroine asks very few questions indeed. Traumatised before she even arrives by the death of her own mother, we are powerless to help her out as she lurches from one crisis to another. The brutality, the lack of normal rules, the exhausting hunt for food should perhaps produce more anarchy among the children than it actually does. One is surprised at the nurturing qualities of all of them, and the self-imposed discipline.
And I was proud of her ability to look after her younger cousin who is clearly in shock. And to think ahead about food and clothes and to keep herself together under a great deal of pressure.
I liked her very much. In spite of the sometimes pretty corny teen slang she was a brave and clever girl. I much admired her acceptance at the end that the cousin with whom she is in love is damaged and may not recover. She was, still, determined to do her best.
