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deedireads's review against another edition
challenging
dark
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.25
All my reviews live at https://deedispeaking.com/reads/.
TL;DR REVIEW:
While this book wasn’t for everyone, I found it to be moving and thought-provoking. Also, the audiobook is incredibly performed and I highly recommend it.
For you if: You like character-driven novels that take place over the span of a lifetime.
FULL REVIEW:
I read Light Perpetual because it was longlisted for the 2021 Booker Prize, with my #BookerOfTheMonth book club. A lot of people who came to our discussion either didn’t care for it or felt neutral about it, but personally, I did quite like it.
The book starts with a sort of thought experiment: Take five young children killed by a bomb in London in 1944. What if they’d lived instead? What would their lives have looked like? We jump forward in time, dropping into their lives every 10–15 years from childhood to old age, getting a snapshot of what’s happening and has happened up to that point in time.
A lot of people at book club had a similar complaint (I don’t think this is really a spoiler, but if you hate knowing things going into a book, stop here): that the bomb, or the fact that none of them actually lives, doesn’t come into play again. The book doesn’t return to this fact at all — the no-bomb-alternative-timeline thing is truly just a thought experiment that launches these characters’ stories into motion. Readers had expected a kind of closure or meaning that never came, and it left them feeling like, what was the point? But personally, this didn’t bother me. I felt like the point was to show that all our lives have ups and downs, and they’re all different, but in that way, they’re also all the same; the alternating mundane and novel aspects of a human lifespan give us more in common than we think. Those who died, if they’d lived, would have found themselves on the same journey as the rest of us, with their own unique struggles and joys. Our lives are special, and also common, and it’s beautiful.
The last thing I’ll say about this one is that the audiobook was incredibly performed — more like a one-woman play performed than a novel narrated — and probably made the difference between me feeling neutral about this and loving it. I’ll be keeping an eye out for books Imogen Church reads in the future!
TL;DR REVIEW:
While this book wasn’t for everyone, I found it to be moving and thought-provoking. Also, the audiobook is incredibly performed and I highly recommend it.
For you if: You like character-driven novels that take place over the span of a lifetime.
FULL REVIEW:
I read Light Perpetual because it was longlisted for the 2021 Booker Prize, with my #BookerOfTheMonth book club. A lot of people who came to our discussion either didn’t care for it or felt neutral about it, but personally, I did quite like it.
The book starts with a sort of thought experiment: Take five young children killed by a bomb in London in 1944. What if they’d lived instead? What would their lives have looked like? We jump forward in time, dropping into their lives every 10–15 years from childhood to old age, getting a snapshot of what’s happening and has happened up to that point in time.
A lot of people at book club had a similar complaint (I don’t think this is really a spoiler, but if you hate knowing things going into a book, stop here): that the bomb, or the fact that none of them actually lives, doesn’t come into play again. The book doesn’t return to this fact at all — the no-bomb-alternative-timeline thing is truly just a thought experiment that launches these characters’ stories into motion. Readers had expected a kind of closure or meaning that never came, and it left them feeling like, what was the point? But personally, this didn’t bother me. I felt like the point was to show that all our lives have ups and downs, and they’re all different, but in that way, they’re also all the same; the alternating mundane and novel aspects of a human lifespan give us more in common than we think. Those who died, if they’d lived, would have found themselves on the same journey as the rest of us, with their own unique struggles and joys. Our lives are special, and also common, and it’s beautiful.
The last thing I’ll say about this one is that the audiobook was incredibly performed — more like a one-woman play performed than a novel narrated — and probably made the difference between me feeling neutral about this and loving it. I’ll be keeping an eye out for books Imogen Church reads in the future!
Content Warnings
Graphic: Racism, Murder, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , and Hate crime
Moderate: Eating disorder
Minor: Misogyny, Abortion, Pedophilia, and Homophobia
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