"How I Live Now" Review

Book 7 of 20 for the Dystopian Challenge

I eat books like this for breakfast.

It has so many elements I revel in, the darkness, the difficulty, and an author who (huzzah!) was not overly protective of her characters; they suffer all manner of hardships.

I thought it was a little morsel of delight. I blazed through it in a couple of well-spent hours.

Told entirely in the first-person by a young girl, it describes her living through war-torn Europe, what she needs to go through to survive, and what she loses. The narration is perfect, youthful without being annoying, nothing hamfisted about the meanings or messages, when they exist. And the characters were strong, occasionally mystical, and the knowledge that we were seeing it all through another person's eyes was ever-present without being overwrought.

It was a lovely, dark breath of fresh air. And, finally, an ending worth reading towards! I loved it.

I wondered about the dystopian nature of the book, but then I made a decision.

I'm working by the definition of 'dystopian' given by Wikipedia, which says: "Dystopia is defined as a society characterized by poverty, squalor, or oppression. Dystopias usually extrapolate elements of contemporary society and function as a warning against some modern trend, often the threat of oppressive regimes in one form or another. It often features different kinds of repressive social control systems, a lack or total absence of individual freedoms and expressions and a state of constant warfare or violence."

Alright then. It certainly qualifies.

This is Meg Rosoff's first novel, and it's very impressive. She has since written other books and, dystopian or not, I'm excited to read them as well.