Meg Rosoff.
Titles I've written about:
How I Live Now (2004) This is from the early days of my blog, and I clearly need to write about this one again, as I apparently wasn't able to articulate anything other than "ZOMG I LOVED IT":
I've been having trouble sleeping lately—I woke up at 2:30 in the morning, picked up the book, and all of a sudden it was two hours later. I don't think that I looked up once.
Just in Case (2006):
The language is a treat—words like incipient, guyline, syncopation, phrases like ‘philosophical vertigo’ and sentences like: “The boundary between reality and fantasy wobbled dangerously.” Her description makes visualization effortless.
There is No Dog (2012):
It wasn't just the tone that reminded me of Douglas Adams. It was the warmth—it was how Meg Rosoff was able to poke fun at (and sometimes skewer) humankind (and our mythology), while also conveying a sense of never-ending affection, wonder, and empathy. There's a sense of hope, too, but it's a realist's sort of hope—one that takes the past into account—so while there are brief, perfect moments of beauty, everything is tempered with a cheerful sort of pessimism.