How I Live Now

Elizabeth is a 15-year-old American girl who goes to England to live for a while with her cousins. (Her stepmother apparently hates her and wanted her out of the way for a while) She ends up falling in love with her cousin Edmond. There are several other cousins there and Aunt Penn, who is involved in the peace movement.

Her Aunt Penn leaves for another country to attend some meetings. While she's gone, some kind of war breaks out and almost all the rest of the book involves Elizabeth's and her cousins efforts to avoid trouble, and then just to stay alive as the situation goes from bad to worse to even worse. Elizabeth and Edmond get separated and much of the story involves her effort to get back to find him.

As far as how a war (non-nuclear) would affect people living in rural areas, the story is pretty good. Some of the types of problems are presented, and the effect on people in general is show by the effects on Elizabeth and her cousins in particular. That part of the story works fairly well.

The problem I had throughout the book, though, was the war itself. Bombs being set off in cities seems to be terrorist-type things, but later in the story it's shown that the “enemy” has troops in England, and tanks, and they seem to be in charge, although by the end of the novel it's shown that the war only lasts about nine months.

I can understand it being considered a “war” if terrorists were to set off bombs in a lot of cities in a short length of time, but an invading army of them, complete with tanks? And if the invaders weren't terrorists, then who would they be, especially considering it's not a nuclear war and there's not really any reference made to airplanes being involved or ships being involved. I kept being distracted by trying to figure out what kind of war the author could possibly be referring to.

That, at least for me, damaged the value of the story considerably. I could understand if the story took place, say, during the English Civil War, however, since the same general events involving Elizabeth and the cousins could have been used (although Elizabeth probably wouldn't have been an American in that case.) Its sort of like the basic part of the story is ok but it's dropped into an enfolding section that just doesn't make proper sense.

Sorry, but this book has to go with my “read when you have nothing else to read” group.

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