How I Live Now

The lovely and talented (and yes, she really is both) Suzie Townsend recommended, in her blog, Meg Rosoff's How I Live Now. While it's not The Hunger Games (lurve lurve lurve), it's really quite good. Imagine me saying that in a British accent, because it's about a young woman whose stepmother sends her to live with her cousins in the English countryside. At first it's a perfect setting: their mother, her aunt, is called away on business in Oslo, and so they are left to have gorgeous days swimming in the river and (in the case of the protagonist, Daisy, and her cousin Edmond) experience a little cousin-on-cousin romance. But then, of course, a war breaks out, and everything convenient and comfortable about modern life is stripped away.

There are lovely moments when, in their separation, Edmond "visits" Daisy, à la Jane Eyre calling out in the night for Mr. Rochester and having a sort of gothic ghostly (but living ghostly) visit/interaction.

It's almost as if, as the modern comforts are taken away, magic replaces them. There is also great description of the animals taking over the wild as the people are (with propaganda) forced to believe there's a smallpox outbreak and, therefore, they should always be inside--leaving the animals, like the children before the war hits, running wild.

Okay, so I'm only 2/3 done, but that's after, like, a day. It's not "cancel on your friends" good, but it's "take it with you everywhere and read it when you're not frantically reading Kindled manuscripts" good. 

Anyway.  If you live in NYC, there are like 30 copies that the public library has available. (A friend of mine is dating someone high up in the NYPL system, and promises an introduction. I have lots of questions about young adults and library usage.) No one seems to be checking them out, and they'll have them messengered to the branch of your choice. And, dude, it's a penny on Amazon (+ $3.99 shipping). Sweetness.