What’s Up With the Title?

How I Live Now—a.k.a. the title of our book—is coincidentally (okay, probably not a coincidence) also the last line of the book: "And that's how I live now" (2.6.14). So what gives?

Until this line, readers may have forgotten that the entire book has been Daisy recounting the story of how she wound up where she is. She even starts the book by saying, "and so here's what happened" (1.1.4). It's easy to forget while reading that Daisy's not telling the story in the moment, since she's so honest about what she thinks and feels as events unfold, but this line, and the title, serve to remind us that it's the strong, war-weary, wise woman still fighting for Edmond's love telling us this story, not the naïve, headstrong, stubborn girl Daisy is for much of the story.