...everything changed because of Edmond.

My name is Elizabeth but no one's ever called me that. My father took one look at me when I was born and must have thought I had the face of someone dignified and sad like an old-fashioned queen or a dead person, but what I turned out like is plain, not much there to notice. Even my life so far has been plain. More Daisy than Elizabeth from the word go.

But the summer I went to England to stay with my cousins everything changed. Part of that was because of the war, which supposedly changed lots of things, but I can't remember much about life before the war anyway so it doesn't count in my book, which this is.

Mostly everything changed because of Edmond.

And so here's what happened.

• Click here to read the rest of this extract from How I Live Now by Meg Rosoff.
• Click here for an excellent review of the novel.
• Click here to read about the responses to the book by three different Reading Groups, including one from a secondary school in Debden, not far from Leyton.