Reviews

Every Light in the House Burnin' by Andrea Levy

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polyphonic_reads's review against another edition

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emotional funny sad fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.5

catherine_louise's review against another edition

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4.0

it's a fast read, and frequently very funny- but there's a lot of sadness and struggle underneath the surface, too. levy leaves it very often as subtext, never pulling out her commentary too stridently or turning anecdotes into Very Special Episodes, which is a wise choice, because the events and details speak for themselves. often scenes that are at first humorous or innocuous turn out, on a closer reading, to have a particular edge and depth to them (e.g., the scene in which angela's parents try to impress their visiting relatives from Jamaica- told very lightly, even ends on a note of humor! but the entire scene is also totally gut-wrenching and painful to watch when you consider how the parents must have felt) which is a lot of how childhood reminiscing works- you look back on something that was innocuous in the moment and realize there was much more that you didn't see.

mollyhedges's review against another edition

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emotional lighthearted reflective medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.0

laurenn_mac's review against another edition

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3.0

3.5 ⭐️

abbie_'s review against another edition

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emotional funny reflective sad medium-paced

4.0

My fourth book by Andrea Levy was Every Light in the House Burnin’, and while it was perhaps a little simplistic, I still enjoyed it and I think it would be a great one to give to your teens to get started with fiction that explores race and racism in the UK!
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It’s semi-autobiographical with two timelines, following Angela as she grows up on a council estate in London in the 60s, and then later as she helps her mother look after her terminally ill father. It’s bleak at times, casual and cruel racism from neighbours and classmates, ageing & illness, an occasionally abusive father, but there are also some moments of levity. Levy has a warm, easy wit which affords the book some lightness while never seeming out of place among the more serious themes.
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I liked both timelines, but I think older Angela’s pipped it for me. Levy writes with great tenderness about the struggles of watching a parent age and succumb to the indignities of illness, reverting to a childlike state which sees roles reversed. We see nurses and doctors who don’t always carry out their duty of care, sometimes due to overworking and understaffing, and sometimes due to systemic racism.
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I also appreciated how Levy shows the generational differences between Angela and her parents. They don’t really like to talk about their move to the UK from Jamaica, and when faced with everyday racism from the white people on their estate, her parents prefer to shrug it off, keep their heads down and truck on. For Angela, this makes the casual cruelty from her ‘friends’ sting all the more. She can’t understand why her friend refuses to eat the food she eats every day, or why she tells Angela ‘she is her friend but not in front of the other kids’, and her parents don’t want to explain.
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Moving and warm, but not without the occasional gut-punch!

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