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moniquemct's review against another edition
4.0
I received a free copy of this through NetGalley
I was hooked on this from the first page. I don't want to say too much about this yet given that it isn't being released for a little while but keep your eyes out. The Light That Gets Lost was heartbreaking, funny and captivating - everything you need in a good book.
I was hooked on this from the first page. I don't want to say too much about this yet given that it isn't being released for a little while but keep your eyes out. The Light That Gets Lost was heartbreaking, funny and captivating - everything you need in a good book.
reviewdiaries's review against another edition
1.0
This review was written for The Review Diaries
You can read the full review here
Thanks to Netgalley & Bloomsbury for sending me a copy in exchange for an honest review
I wasn’t sold on that blurb but I was at least curious, curious enough to want to pick it up and give it a go. However it ended up being a hodge podge story of problems, confusion and lacked any sort of direction or purpose.
The writing style is either going to draw you in or put you off. Run on sentences that take up half a page, overly descriptive passages that sometimes veer into lyrical beauty and sometimes just leave you scratching your head wandering what the hell the author means. This style means that there are long sections of nothing happening at all, and I have to admit to skim reading whole chunks of this because I was just becoming so bored with the overly detailed passages. The actual characters are a bit of a mix. I never really connected with any of them, and I don’t know if that was the writing style or the story or just the un-likeability of them. They never gain any depth or sense of character and as a result I just didn’t care. Everything they say is either ‘said’ or ‘shouted’ and particularly when the characters are supposed to be being stealthy that starts to grate incredibly quickly.
The setting is particularly bizarre. It’s supposed to be set in Cornwall, England, but it feels more like America. At no point does it ever feel as though that setting rings true. Plus it’s hard to pin point exactly what the situation is for this camp that Trey ends up in. Some of the conversations in the second half of the book about other camps like this and the army regulating everything makes it sound like this is some sort of dystopian future, but there are no explanations, no backstory, nothing outside of Trey’s ‘quest’ to make this story more real and relatable to the reader. It’s just thrown out at you and you’re expected to accept it as is. If the rest of the elements were well done enough this might just work, but as it is it just leaves you feeling displaced and confused.
And then there’s the plot. I was expecting a revenge quest – after all that’s what the blurb tells us we’re getting, and yes revenge is a pre-dominant factor for the first half of the book. Never mind the fact that most of Trey’s planning and thinking has so many plot holes that if you tried to float it it would sink. It’s patchy at best, but then suddenly at the halfway mark everything is revealed and we take an abrupt side shuffle into some sort of ‘Lord of the Flies’ retelling. Its abrupt, it’s confusing, it makes zero sense. The revenge plotline is all but forgotten in favour of creating traps, defences and weapons, and having big showdowns. I was left more than a little baffled.
This could have been a fascinating story told in a unique and lyrical way. What we get is some cobbled together narrative with a bizarre setting, no real direction or purpose, and characters that don’t feel fully formed. It feels like a first draft, a concept yet to be finished and improved. I felt thoroughly disappointed and as though I’d just wasted my time.
You can read the full review here
Thanks to Netgalley & Bloomsbury for sending me a copy in exchange for an honest review
I wasn’t sold on that blurb but I was at least curious, curious enough to want to pick it up and give it a go. However it ended up being a hodge podge story of problems, confusion and lacked any sort of direction or purpose.
The writing style is either going to draw you in or put you off. Run on sentences that take up half a page, overly descriptive passages that sometimes veer into lyrical beauty and sometimes just leave you scratching your head wandering what the hell the author means. This style means that there are long sections of nothing happening at all, and I have to admit to skim reading whole chunks of this because I was just becoming so bored with the overly detailed passages. The actual characters are a bit of a mix. I never really connected with any of them, and I don’t know if that was the writing style or the story or just the un-likeability of them. They never gain any depth or sense of character and as a result I just didn’t care. Everything they say is either ‘said’ or ‘shouted’ and particularly when the characters are supposed to be being stealthy that starts to grate incredibly quickly.
The setting is particularly bizarre. It’s supposed to be set in Cornwall, England, but it feels more like America. At no point does it ever feel as though that setting rings true. Plus it’s hard to pin point exactly what the situation is for this camp that Trey ends up in. Some of the conversations in the second half of the book about other camps like this and the army regulating everything makes it sound like this is some sort of dystopian future, but there are no explanations, no backstory, nothing outside of Trey’s ‘quest’ to make this story more real and relatable to the reader. It’s just thrown out at you and you’re expected to accept it as is. If the rest of the elements were well done enough this might just work, but as it is it just leaves you feeling displaced and confused.
And then there’s the plot. I was expecting a revenge quest – after all that’s what the blurb tells us we’re getting, and yes revenge is a pre-dominant factor for the first half of the book. Never mind the fact that most of Trey’s planning and thinking has so many plot holes that if you tried to float it it would sink. It’s patchy at best, but then suddenly at the halfway mark everything is revealed and we take an abrupt side shuffle into some sort of ‘Lord of the Flies’ retelling. Its abrupt, it’s confusing, it makes zero sense. The revenge plotline is all but forgotten in favour of creating traps, defences and weapons, and having big showdowns. I was left more than a little baffled.
This could have been a fascinating story told in a unique and lyrical way. What we get is some cobbled together narrative with a bizarre setting, no real direction or purpose, and characters that don’t feel fully formed. It feels like a first draft, a concept yet to be finished and improved. I felt thoroughly disappointed and as though I’d just wasted my time.
booksnbookends's review
2.0
I received a free copy of this book by the book's publishers via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. Thank you!
When I picked up this book, I had high expectations. The blurb drew me in and I had read a couple of good reviews before deciding to give it a go for myself. I wanted this book to be brilliant so much, but it ended up being one of the most disappointing books I have read this year.
Trey is a teenager who has seen his parents killed. Now he has only one focus, revenge. His hunt for the man who killed is parents is on. His arrival at a mysterious camp with strange cliques and jobs might just lead him exactly where he needs to be...
It sounds good doesn't it, unfortunately the book doesn't live up to the hype. It was exceptionally slow to begin with and was pretty laborious reading until about 35% through. Whenever Trey is angry, he constantly refers to the Demon being inside him and driving his revenge but whether he is the Demon or if it is simply a metaphor, it is never explicitly stated. The story itself seems to jump about and many loose threads seem to just be left unresolved.
I felt very disappointed by this book because it has so much potential. The plot and entire concept was fantastic but its execution was far less so. Carthew's writing style was far more descriptive, poetic and metaphoric than focused upon the plot, which some people may enjoy but it definitely wasn't for me. The ending of the story felt like I had stopped reading this book and had picked up at the end of Lord of the Flies instead. A very frustrating read, which had far more potential and could have been something fantastic.
When I picked up this book, I had high expectations. The blurb drew me in and I had read a couple of good reviews before deciding to give it a go for myself. I wanted this book to be brilliant so much, but it ended up being one of the most disappointing books I have read this year.
Trey is a teenager who has seen his parents killed. Now he has only one focus, revenge. His hunt for the man who killed is parents is on. His arrival at a mysterious camp with strange cliques and jobs might just lead him exactly where he needs to be...
It sounds good doesn't it, unfortunately the book doesn't live up to the hype. It was exceptionally slow to begin with and was pretty laborious reading until about 35% through. Whenever Trey is angry, he constantly refers to the Demon being inside him and driving his revenge but whether he is the Demon or if it is simply a metaphor, it is never explicitly stated. The story itself seems to jump about and many loose threads seem to just be left unresolved.
I felt very disappointed by this book because it has so much potential. The plot and entire concept was fantastic but its execution was far less so. Carthew's writing style was far more descriptive, poetic and metaphoric than focused upon the plot, which some people may enjoy but it definitely wasn't for me. The ending of the story felt like I had stopped reading this book and had picked up at the end of Lord of the Flies instead. A very frustrating read, which had far more potential and could have been something fantastic.
bookishaly's review
4.0
He wasn't like these other boys. His life had been set upon by circumstances beyond his control. He wasn't bad for the kick of things; he'd grown bad like bacteria on foul meat.
Trey was only a little boy when his parents were murdered, but he still remembers the night like it was yesterday, and his plans for revenge are the only thing keeping him going as he grows up without direction or support. Now sixteen, Trey is on the way to Camp Kernow, a place for troubled teens that claims salvation for all the bad things they've done.
And, coincidentally, it is also the place harbouring the murderer of his family.
The place that all the bad kids got put and the only place in Cornwall for a boy like Trey: Camp Kernow. The place where his parents' killer got to rule over the kids with an iron rod.
Once there, Trey realises that finding his parents' killer and taking revenge isn't going to be as easy as he imagined -- most of the men in charge are bad people, hard to distinguish from the one man that ruined his life, and most of the kids are just as bad or even worse. Not only that, but it's going to be even harder than he thought to escape once the deed is done, as the Camp is in constant lockdown and each kid is accounted for. Dorm doors are locked every night, and each hour is dedicated to something different, with registers and eyes everywhere to keep the boys in check.
It's with that desperation that Trey reluctantly befriends Lamby, a boy best known for constantly winding up the other boys -- mostly Wilder, the Camp's mini boss -- and finding out information about people that are best kept secret. It isn't long before the group of two becomes a group of five, and Trey finds himself settling in far too well and getting attached. Before he realises, he's battling his inner demon: revenge, or life?
But Camp Kernow isn't all it seems, and it is a far cry from a place of salvation as advertised. There are dark plans afoot, and Trey and his friends swear to find out what they are and put a stop to them before it's too late.
The Light That Gets Lost is a unique book that hooked me in from the very first page and refused to let go. I found myself far too emotionally involved with Trey's life -- his past as the son of "that family that was murdered", his present as a brother to a boy locked forever in a care home thanks to surviving a bullet that was supposed to kill him on that fateful night; and his future as someone unsure of who he is and what he is going to do once he's taken revenge for his family. Trey's character was raw and real, the sort that made me cry and clutch at my chest in sorrow and the sort that made me root for him on every single level.
Carthew's writing is also unique. It's lyrical and poetic and brings the story to life better than any film. I loved every moment of The Light That Gets Lost and, marketed for fans of Siobhan Dowd and Meg Rosoff, I couldn't agree more. This is a book that will stay with you a long time after finishing
If you love raw, emotional and heartbreaking stories of growing up, finding yourself and trying to forge a path in a life that has already been set out for you by society, The Light That Gets Lost is the perfect story for you.
After reading:Good and weird and weird and good. The Light That Gets Lost is definitely a book to look out for. This is one of those books that will stay with you a long time after finishing.
FRTC.
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