Book 296: How I Live Now
Vicki often recommends interesting juvenile fiction, which I appreciate, since I wouldn’t read juvenile fiction independently, but I like a lot of juvenile fiction, so it’s nice to get recommendations for particularly intriguing books.
This book, however, is deeply problematic. There are, in fact, so many problems with it that it is kind of hard to know where to begin. The sexualization of little girls? The incest? The style in which it is written? The obsession with thinness?
Well, let’s start from the bottom. The narrator is anorexic, and, boy howdy, Rosoff doesn’t let us forget it. There are references to not eating and being thin on practically every page, especially when she periodically does eat and thinks she’s fat, and I think it’s disgusting. The narrator’s thinness and malnutrition are totally glorified in this book, with only one, vague, passing reference to the fact that maybe what she is doing to herself is a bad thing. She even talks about one of the other characters, saying that at least now that there’s a famine on, she’s lost weight. Ugh. I think that even if I wasn’t a member of the fat acceptance movement, I would still be revolted by this.
The style in which this book is written…we are to gather that the narrator is 21 at the time of writing, but the book is written in this noxious, fragmented, poorly punctuated style which I really don’t like. It makes it hard to just let the story flow, because it feels extremely forced, and it also feels kind of patronizing, because the implication is that she stops going to school at 15, and therefore can’t write, and that bothers me.
The incest…actually isn’t that big a problem for me. It’s cousins, after all, hardly the end of the world. On top of all of the other problems with this book, it’s a small detail. Speaking of which, what is up with the sexualization of a nine year old girl in the story? Ugh. More disgusting.
It’s a pity, because I really like the concept of this book, and I think it speaks to some valid current political and social issues. Too bad Rosoff had to ruin her great concept with what amounts to child pornography and fat hatred. There are rare moments when this book really shines, and you see what an amazing book it could have been without Rosoff’s weird issues intruding.
Demographics:
The Way I Live Now, by Meg Rosoff. Published 2004, 194 pages. Fiction.
October 9th, 2008
Oh, and the cousin thing. That was very common in the past as a way to keep property in the family. One of my grandmothers inherited the family farm and was married to her cousin so the farm would not go to a stranger (it had been held by the family for about 700 years). That was not a happy marriage. Another grandmother in that line was also an heiress; she eloped with her poor cousin over family objections. Of course, in Iceland, everyone is related one way or another. Studies done there show that the most fertile unions are between third or fourth cousins. So consanguinity is not always bad.
That being said, I have never had any urge to do anything of that nature with any of my cousins. But that may be because we lack enough genetic diversity…..
October 9th, 2008
I read it as throught the lens of a narrator who was a damaged, self-abosrbed child of some privilege. I did find her fairly unsympathetic but I really kind of like people stuck in disaster sorts of books and the concept was fascinating.