How I Live Now

Daisy is a fifteen year-old anorexic from New York, sent to live in London with her aunt and cousins when her father and her pregnant step-mother decide they can’t deal with her and her disorder anymore.  They are much more interested in the unborn child they have not yet met, than the very much alive and in-need-of-help-daughter they already have.   Daisy arrives in London, met by her cousin Edmond, who is fourteen, smokes, and drives.  She is impressed.  Her cousins appear to be somewhat telepathic, though that isn’t the crux of the story.  The crux of the story is that soon after she arrives, her aunt has to leave on a business trip that takes her out of the country, at which point, war breaks out.  At first, things are fine for Daisy and her cousins, because the war doesn’t seem to touch them in the British countryside.  Daisy and Edmond (first cousins) fall in love with each other, and the lack of a parental figure helps them immensely in their forbidden love.  Things don’t stay easy and idyllic for them and the other cousins, however, as the war progresses and comes to their small town.

I loved this book.  Daisy was a truly human and understandable character.   She’s in love with her cousin, which is repugnant.  She has an eating disorder, which is only hinted at, but never ignored.  She could be anyone, thrust into a horrific situation that is completely out of her control.