MORE IDEAS FOR AN AUTHOR’S BLOG
(And what I think of HOW I LIVE NOW)

On an author visit to Dame Alice Owen’s School last Wednesday, I again asked the question “What would you like to see on an author’s website and blog?” And once again I was pleased to hear the many intriguing and intelligent suggestions offered up by the students from Year 7 and Year 8 that I met there. These included an idea for a section with hints and tips for aspiring writers, competitions, the posting up of lists of the author’s likes and dislikes, book reviews by the author together with an invitation for any comments from readers, and details of current ideas and projects. The importance of regularly updating the blog was also pointed out, so that there would always be something new to read.

I’m determined to have a go at including some of these suggestions, as well as keeping the book log/ book review side of things going (see below). I should point out that all my reviews will be positive, since I always try to avoid reading books I don’t like. If you want to look back at any of my previous book logs, please see the list of titles and blog entry dates in the posting before this one. Or you might want to post a comment if you’ve also read the book reviewed below, or indeed, any of the others.

So here are my thoughts on a book I read recently, which was…

HOW I LIVE NOW by Meg Rosoff

Set in an alternative present, this gripping story is narrated by Daisy, a teenage anorexic from New York, who finds herself pitched headlong into a Britain on the brink of a devastating war. And it’s going to change her life forever.

She arrives as damaged goods. Packed off to stay with relatives, she is met at the airport by her chain-smoking, underage driving, younger cousin Edmund. He combines a certain irresistible charm with a supernatural ability to empathise. He can, it seems, read her mind. Despite the difference in age, and the awkward fact that he’s a blood relative, Daisy is utterly smitten. So it is love that sets her on the road to recovery. But it’s a route that is to prove desperately painful to travel.

The plot deliberately subverts expectations, breaking up the narrative, just as the initially idyllic pattern of Daisy’s life in the English countryside is shattered by the events of the war. Characters are strewn to the four winds and Daisy is eventually brought face to face with the full horrors of war. But this is no story of campaign and command. Daisy has no interest in observing history in the making. She just wants to survive with something of the inner peace she thought she’d found still left intact. With painful irony, we learn that Daisy has finally beaten her eating disorder just as the country is gripped by famine.

As the story reaches its conclusion, it’s clear that Daisy has shifted from the powerless neurotic of the opening chapters to a determined and self-possessed individual who has discovered that “fighting back is what I do best.” Though brimming with tragedy, the ending is not entirely bleak. Amongst the ruins of places and people there remains the promise of recovery, through the renewing properties of love, and through the unquenchable optimism of growing things.