How I Live Now

A 2004 YA novel by Meg Rosoff.

So there we are carrying on our happy little life of underage sex, child labour and espionage when someone came to visit us, which, after weeks of Just Us Five kind of took us by surprise, to put it mildly.

After relations with her father and stepmother break down, Daisy, a cynical, unloved 15-year-old suffering from anorexia, is sent from New York to the English countryside, to stay with her cousins. Living in a beautiful, ramshackle house and blissfully free of teacherly or parental restraints, Osbert, Edmond, Isaac and Piper are a wild but gentle crowd, at least one of whom, Edmond, seems to have actual magical powers. Wary at first, Daisy is soon entranced by their small private utopia. But meanwhile the world slides towards war. The kids blithely ignore it at first, but horror and violence are drawing ever closer.

The novel incorporates tropes from fairy stories and classic children's literature (the death of Daisy's mother in childbirth, the carefree gang of unsupervised children romping about in a glorious English summer) into its ultimately more daring and provocative narrative.

Tropes used in How I Live Now include:

Aloof Big Brother: Osbert remains relatively detached from and mildly unsympathetic to the others' feelings and goings on.
Deadpan Snarker: Daisy.
Death by Childbirth: Daisy's mother.
The Determinator: Something else Daisy discovers about herself.
Emo Teen: Daisy starts out this way, though at least she's always self-aware and funny about it.
Five-Man Band: Daisy and her cousins. At first.
Friend to All Living Things: Piper, Isaac.
Heroic BSOD: Pretty much everyone, to varying extents. Especially Edmond.
Incorruptible Pure Pureness: Almost everyone, really, notably Piper and Edmond. Isaac too, though in slightly chillier form.
It Got Worse a number of times, and we're talking about a pretty damaged 15-year-old protagonist to begin with.
Kissing Cousins: The romance between teenage cousins Daisy and Edmond is the unapologetic core of the book.
Mama Bear: Initially self-absorbed, Daisy unexpectedly discovers a strong protective streak in herself, especially with regard to 9-year-old Piper:

"And the thought made me fierce and strong like a mother wildebeest and suddenly I knew where people got the strength to pick up cars with babies lying under them which I always thought was made up."

Nausea Fuel: It was the type of book you couldn't put down, but God were the moments when you wanted to just chuck the thing at the wall. Any of the scenes involving corpses was enough.
Nightmare Fuel: The fates of The Major and the guy from the orchard Gave me nightmares, to be honest.
Parental Abandonment. At least Aunt Penn's neglect of her seemingly fatherless children is well-intentioned/accidental. Daisy's father - not so excusable.
Promotion to Parent Initially it's actually poor little Piper who takes on most of the practical responsibility for keeping everyone alive, later, as things get too much for any nine-year-old to handle, Daisy steps up.
The Quiet One: Isaac. Edmond gets more said without words, too.
Telepathy: Edmond. Because why not?
Twin Telepathy: Isaac seems to be mildly telepathic where Edmond is concerned, though Edmond's never-named ability is clearly much stronger.
- It's implied that Issac's telepathy only works on his twin and on animals, which explains how he was so good handling them. Edmond's power just seemed to be straight-up telepathy.
Wicked Stepmother: Davina. As Daisy puts it, "If she was making even the slightest attempt to address centuries of bad press for stepmothers, she scored a Big Fat Zero."
World War Three: A very small, close-up view of it. Daisy's never very clear exactly what's going on or why.