Title: How I Live Now
Author: Meg Rosoff
Read by: Kim Mai Guest
Publisher: Random House audio
(I checked this one out from the library.)
Daisy, a 15 year old from Manhattan, is sent to England to live with her cousins and Aunt Penn, relatives she has never met. Her father and stepmother, newly expecting, think this is the best for everyone.
It doesn't take Daisy long to realize that her stay on her Aunt's farm is going to be unlike anything she new in New York. Aside from the fact that Aunt Penn travels extensively, and often leaves her children unsupervised, there is also the uncanny "telepathy" that the cousins seem to possess. Daisy soon finds herself falling in love with Edmund, despite the fact that they are cousins. While this was upsetting to me, that taboo didn't seem to make a difference in this story. Soon, war breaks out. We do not know who invades or what the war is about, just that it has stranded Aunt Penn in Norway and the children are more isolated than ever.
After soldiers take over their farm, the children are separated, with the girls (Piper and Daisy) going to one farm to work, and the boys to another. When trouble erupts in the area, Piper and Daisy take off on a journey to try to find the farm that the boys were sent to. All they find is death.
Daisy really comes of age in this story. She transforms from a normal American teenager to a young girl with compassion and courage - able to survive, with the help of Piper, in the wilderness and face situations she would never have imagined. It was a good story to listen to, but I am not sure that I would have understood or appreciated it as much if I had read it as a teen.
