So I hope he never does kiss me. That would be nothing but a disaster. No one needs to see me fall apart like that. Least of all him. Actually, maybe least of all me.
When is it the right time to fall in love? When it’s nearing Valentine’s Day, or prom, or New Year’s? How about when it’s two a.m. and you feel like you have no one in your corner?
When is it the right time to meet ‘The One’? Is it when you’re in high school, in college or after college? When? You might think you have a plan – a plan that the universe will help you follow through – but what if it doesn’t work out that way?
What if everything happens at the wrong time? Everything good and everything bad, all at exactly the time you don’t need it to happen. Because that’s love, and that’s life. Messy, unpredictable, crazy.
If only Lucille’s mother didn’t leave just as she was finishing school, leaving her to take care of her nine year–old sister. Why couldn’t she have waited until later, when both her daughters were grown up? Why did her father have to go crazy? Why did life have to go from simply having a crush on a forbidden boy, to sanitation bills, working seven hour days and lying to adults at all costs? Why did the boy she has been crushing on choose now to look at her for the first time? Why? Why now?
When I initially read the premise of This Raging Light, I didn’t think it would pack an emotional kick of any kind that a book with this kind of premise requires. The book I read, however, was grittier and just better than what I was expecting. In all honesty, This Raging Light surprised me.
I admired the protagonist’s character and determination, I admired that she was willing to go through days that would tire out a hardworking adult– let alone a teenage girl with school to attend and a house and sister to take care of. It was an impossible situation, and I was SO glad that this book consists of things actually being done, with very little complaint. I loved the relationship between Digby and Lucille– especially how the feeling of love was described for the first time.
What I didn’t like was her parents (obviously)... geez, I get that life is hard, but whether it was entirely your decision or not, you’re responsible for the children you bring into this world. You can’t run away and/ or sit at a halfway house, claiming life is too hard and all you really need is a beer when your seventeen year old daughter slaves it out, doing what the two of you should be doing. It doesn’t work that way. Grow up.
Also, Eden. I loved the idea of her as a best friend, but the plot twist that was used to get Lucille and Digby closer, by just kicking the best friend out of the picture, was a little too boyfriends–over–friends for me, and I just don’t stand for that.
All in all though, This Raging Light was a whole lot better than I expected, although not everything it could have been.
- Buy this book at the Guardian Bookshop
