Book Review: How I Live Now
Rated by 2 members
What Parents Should Know
The relatively positive attitude towards incest and smoking
will disturb many parents, though providing grounds for
discussion by courageous adults, who may wish to provide a
reality check as well.
Common Sense Media Review
This book has gotten starred reviews all over the place, and
it's easy to see why. Written in sinuous and stylized prose,
and using an original and sardonic teen voice, it has
undeniable power, and it is one of the first teen books to
deal, however peripherally, with the new vision, vastly
different from just a few years ago, of what a world war might
look like in the 21st century.
But there's so much that's wrong here, even aside from the warped values mentioned in the content advisories above. The author hints at telepathy among the cousins, but never pursues it; the way the unidentified force takes over England, apparently with hardly a fight, is never explained; Daisy just gets over her anorexia, which never seemed to bother her much to begin with; and the end comes with a jolt, and jump in time, and many unanswered questions. Even the major issues the author raises, such as incest, seem there for no particular reason, and are never dealt with. This is a strong but deeply flawed first effort.
From the Book:
... sometimes I forgot to count Isaac because he could
go days without saying a single word. I knew Aunt Penn wasn't
worried about him because I heard her say to someone that he'd
speak when he was ready to speak, but all I could think was in
New York that kid would have been stuck in a straitjacket
practically from birth and dangled over a tank full of
Educational Consultants and Remedial Experts all snapping at
his ankles for the next twenty years arguing about his Special
Needs and getting paid plenty for it.
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