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3.62 AVERAGE
3.62 AVERAGE
Before I even mention the plot, I just have to say that Jenni Fagan's writing is a treat. She makes such lyrical observations that near-apocalyptic climate change has never sounded more beautiful. Capturing the character of Constance as a woman who would "polish the moon" is a wonderful device, especially given the title.
Now, to the story. Our main characters are Dylan, a very tall man who has had to abandon his life in London to take up life in a caravan in Scotland, armed with his two closest relations reduced to ash in his suitcase; Stella, a twelve-year-old trans girl struggling for acceptance in her rural community and for receiving the hormone suppressors she needs as puberty begins; and Constance, a singular woman who does the best to care for her daughter and live an independent life from her male lovers. Even as the winter grows more dangerous, it's the everyday drama of these characters that carries us through the novel. An iceberg may be heading for the community, but what of Dylan's conflict over his family tree? Stella's love/hate relationship with a boy who kissed her in private but did not save her from a brutal beating? Constance's efforts to prepare for the worst? Even in the darkness and dread, each character retains hope. This is much more about human existence than it is about a potential end to the world, but I was delighted regardless.
I received an advance review copy from Penguin's First to Read program in exchange for an honest review.
Now, to the story. Our main characters are Dylan, a very tall man who has had to abandon his life in London to take up life in a caravan in Scotland, armed with his two closest relations reduced to ash in his suitcase; Stella, a twelve-year-old trans girl struggling for acceptance in her rural community and for receiving the hormone suppressors she needs as puberty begins; and Constance, a singular woman who does the best to care for her daughter and live an independent life from her male lovers. Even as the winter grows more dangerous, it's the everyday drama of these characters that carries us through the novel. An iceberg may be heading for the community, but what of Dylan's conflict over his family tree? Stella's love/hate relationship with a boy who kissed her in private but did not save her from a brutal beating? Constance's efforts to prepare for the worst? Even in the darkness and dread, each character retains hope. This is much more about human existence than it is about a potential end to the world, but I was delighted regardless.
I received an advance review copy from Penguin's First to Read program in exchange for an honest review.
An about-face in setting (from end-times sun-scorched Los Angeles to snow-laden Scottish Hebrides in coming ice age) though not theme (near-future apocalypse) from Michelle Tea's Black Wave. The Sunlight Pilgrims is a harrowing but joy-filled (if not joyful) portrait of a frightening but still human future. The best novel I’ve read in a while.
Tucked away in a small caravan park in northern Scotland during the winter of 2020 a small group of friends are able to find beauty within an "end of days" winter weather pattern brought on by the world ignoring climate change. Ice crystals, snow flowers and the brilliant breathtaking silence brought on by continuous snow fall are beautifully described in Fagan's The Sunlight Pilgrims.
I love that this is not your typical dystopian story; the world doesn't go crazy, life doesn't end horrifically. Instead life goes on with certain accommodations for the negative temperatures, frozen rivers and free floating icebergs. Plus IKEA rates a mention in the story, always a plus in my book ☺
The heart of the story is how both Dylan & Stella find their true selves and live their lives to the fullest regardless of the doom & gloom around them. One of my favorite parts of the book is when Dylan realizes that up to this point in his life he had just been watching life go by but now he was truly living his life.
Most times I dislike open ended stories because I need closure. I want all the story lines wrapped up so I'm not left with "what-ifs"-to OCD to handle it I guess but strangely enough I was okay with Fagan's choice. The uncertainty of their survival echos the uncertainty of the rest of the story really well.
I highly recommend The Sunlight Pilgrims to anyone looking to read something a little different than the norm.
I love that this is not your typical dystopian story; the world doesn't go crazy, life doesn't end horrifically. Instead life goes on with certain accommodations for the negative temperatures, frozen rivers and free floating icebergs. Plus IKEA rates a mention in the story, always a plus in my book ☺
The heart of the story is how both Dylan & Stella find their true selves and live their lives to the fullest regardless of the doom & gloom around them. One of my favorite parts of the book is when Dylan realizes that up to this point in his life he had just been watching life go by but now he was truly living his life.
Most times I dislike open ended stories because I need closure. I want all the story lines wrapped up so I'm not left with "what-ifs"-to OCD to handle it I guess but strangely enough I was okay with Fagan's choice. The uncertainty of their survival echos the uncertainty of the rest of the story really well.
I highly recommend The Sunlight Pilgrims to anyone looking to read something a little different than the norm.
A wonderful apocalypse story - the story slowly unfolds as the earth slowly descends into a new ice age. The author's focus remains upon the three (very intriguing) main characters, but we are fully aware of the social and economic disintegration happening around them. Recommended for fans of [b:Station Eleven|20170404|Station Eleven|Emily St. John Mandel|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1451446835s/20170404.jpg|28098716].
http://prologuist.blogspot.com/2016/08/winter-is-coming.html
1.5
Sometimes a book sounds so intriguing, so you buy a copy, and then you start to read it, and you find it's really not for you at all. Sadly, this is what happened here.
This book is a group of elements that don't go together for me. We have Dylan, who goes to Scotland after his mother and grandmother's deaths in an attempt to grieve and get on with his life. There, he meets Constance and her daughter Stella, and promptly develops an attraction to Constance, who's somewhat of a social pariah in town because of her so-called promiscuity.
We also have Stella, a trans teen, dealing with the difficulties of transition in a small town full of narrow-minded people.
And encompassing those stories, we have the arrival of the coldest winter on record, and all the anxiety about climate change that goes along with it.
I liked the trans rep, but I didn't see how that went with Dylan's story or the climate change story. Fagan seemed to be talking about lives in progress as this catastrophic winter descends, but it didn't feel particularly nuanced or special to me.
And I hated the Dylan/Constance storyline, like, really hated it. I think it particularly irked me because this was a female writer, and I felt nauseated by the way she wrote Dylan thinking about Constance. Constant erections and the phrase 'secretary porn star' (or it could have been porn star secretary). Yuck! There was also a really weird reveal in the second section of the book that made me roll my eyes and think 'Really? We're doing this now?' It felt like Fagan wanted this to be some kind of fated or cosmic connection and I was really not on board, at all.
The writing was ok. The events felt kind of mundane, though, which is surprising given what the characters were living through. I suspect that was deliberate, but it felt like an odd choice. I think I just wanted more on the climate stuff, and I think the mundanity of the events is probably why none of this felt special to me. I think it was supposed to be a tale of survival against the odds (which is rather uncertain anyway), but it didn't feel like it was written that way.
I don't know. This was a strange, and rather unpleasant, reading experience for me. No one's going to get along with every book, of course, but I feel like the actual story didn't do the blurb justice, which is not what you want to have happen.
Sometimes a book sounds so intriguing, so you buy a copy, and then you start to read it, and you find it's really not for you at all. Sadly, this is what happened here.
This book is a group of elements that don't go together for me. We have Dylan, who goes to Scotland after his mother and grandmother's deaths in an attempt to grieve and get on with his life. There, he meets Constance and her daughter Stella, and promptly develops an attraction to Constance, who's somewhat of a social pariah in town because of her so-called promiscuity.
We also have Stella, a trans teen, dealing with the difficulties of transition in a small town full of narrow-minded people.
And encompassing those stories, we have the arrival of the coldest winter on record, and all the anxiety about climate change that goes along with it.
I liked the trans rep, but I didn't see how that went with Dylan's story or the climate change story. Fagan seemed to be talking about lives in progress as this catastrophic winter descends, but it didn't feel particularly nuanced or special to me.
And I hated the Dylan/Constance storyline, like, really hated it. I think it particularly irked me because this was a female writer, and I felt nauseated by the way she wrote Dylan thinking about Constance. Constant erections and the phrase 'secretary porn star' (or it could have been porn star secretary). Yuck! There was also a really weird reveal in the second section of the book that made me roll my eyes and think 'Really? We're doing this now?' It felt like Fagan wanted this to be some kind of fated or cosmic connection and I was really not on board, at all.
The writing was ok. The events felt kind of mundane, though, which is surprising given what the characters were living through. I suspect that was deliberate, but it felt like an odd choice. I think I just wanted more on the climate stuff, and I think the mundanity of the events is probably why none of this felt special to me. I think it was supposed to be a tale of survival against the odds (which is rather uncertain anyway), but it didn't feel like it was written that way.
I don't know. This was a strange, and rather unpleasant, reading experience for me. No one's going to get along with every book, of course, but I feel like the actual story didn't do the blurb justice, which is not what you want to have happen.
I liked but didn't love this book. I did love its treatment of trans experience and non-monogamy, as these issues were woven seamlessly into the plot and felt intrinsic to the characters and their experiences of climate trauma. I found it odd that some of the major moments/conflicts were resolved 'off stage' as it were (perhaps the never-ending snow covered things up), and, while I appreciated the ending didn't love it, but will leave it at that to avoid spoilers.
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
mysterious
reflective
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
The weather patterns across the world are getting more extreme each year. Soon, it will be the most brutally cold winter we've ever experienced. An Ice Age. Those who are attempting to survive in the new weather extremes will be looking to take help in whatever form they can in The Sunlight Pilgrims by Jenni Fagan.
To read this, and other book reviews, visit my website: http://makinggoodstories.wordpress.com/.
In the year 2020, the world is freezing over and snow blankets the landscape. No where on Earth is safe from the dropping temperatures. In the mountainous Scottish Highlands, Dylan, a former cinema owner from London who has traveled north on a posthumous wish of his mother and grandmother, meets Constance and her daughter Stella in the caravan park where Dylan's new home is. As they get to know one another and the weather gets worse, their lives are brought much closer together out of necessity for survival, but in a way greater than they ever imagined they would be. And with sunlight becoming a rare commodity in this exaggerated, extended winter, they each learn to value light, and each other, in new ways.
With crisp writing that bites and sticks with you as much as a brutal winter does, the story is rather captivating to read on a character-driven level. The way that dialogue was distinguished from attributing text or narration was a bit strange from what I'm accustomed to, but I could see how it could possibly be used to play into the mindset of the characters who have been forced to deal with extreme winter conditions for an extended period of time--quick and to the point. I appreciate how the aspect of Stella's being transgender was handled throughout the text, both the highs and the lows of how others in her life, as well as Stella herself, view her transition. I enjoyed how the narrative helps to show that even though the world is slowly trying to wipe the slate clean that it doesn't erase the social problems that people face.
To read this, and other book reviews, visit my website: http://makinggoodstories.wordpress.com/.
In the year 2020, the world is freezing over and snow blankets the landscape. No where on Earth is safe from the dropping temperatures. In the mountainous Scottish Highlands, Dylan, a former cinema owner from London who has traveled north on a posthumous wish of his mother and grandmother, meets Constance and her daughter Stella in the caravan park where Dylan's new home is. As they get to know one another and the weather gets worse, their lives are brought much closer together out of necessity for survival, but in a way greater than they ever imagined they would be. And with sunlight becoming a rare commodity in this exaggerated, extended winter, they each learn to value light, and each other, in new ways.
With crisp writing that bites and sticks with you as much as a brutal winter does, the story is rather captivating to read on a character-driven level. The way that dialogue was distinguished from attributing text or narration was a bit strange from what I'm accustomed to, but I could see how it could possibly be used to play into the mindset of the characters who have been forced to deal with extreme winter conditions for an extended period of time--quick and to the point. I appreciate how the aspect of Stella's being transgender was handled throughout the text, both the highs and the lows of how others in her life, as well as Stella herself, view her transition. I enjoyed how the narrative helps to show that even though the world is slowly trying to wipe the slate clean that it doesn't erase the social problems that people face.
It's well written, it has well formed and motivated characters, and a gripping setting, but it doesn't really have any tension. It never really gets going, and the characters don't really do much. Worth reading, but I doubt it will stay with me - a bit like an ice crystal. You might say it left me cold.