What I Was

What I Was is a beautifully crafted and heartbreakingly poignant coming-of-age tale that is set mainly in a hut on an isolated strip of land in East Anglia. The narrator is an older man who recounts the story of his most significant friendship -- that with the nearly feral and completely parentless Finn, who lives alone in a hut by the sea. He idolizes Finn and spends as much time with him at the beachside hut as possible, hoping to become self-reliant and free instead of burdened by the boarding school dress code and curfew. But the contrast between their lives becomes evermore painful, until one day the tables turn and everything our hero believes to be true explodes -- with dire consequences. Meg Rosoff's first novel, How I Live Now, won the Michael L. Printz Award, the Guardian Children's Fiction Prize, and the Branford Boase Award for a First Novel. Her second novel, Just in Case, won the Carnegie Medal and is short listed for the Costa Award (formerly Whitbread). Born in Boston, she moved in 1989 to London, where she lives with her husband and daughter.