A review by cedarwins
The Light Pirate by Lily Brooks-Dalton

5.0

What is magic but science that is not yet understood? What is science but magic with an explanation? (230)

It is a wonder that one book can hold such a vastness. The Light Pirate follows Wanda’s quest for belonging from the moments leading to her birth, to those just before her death. In between, we find a thought and emotion inducing novel which ponders how we face the uncontrollable force of change. 

The first 100 pages of The Light Pirate contained some of the most intense, gripping, and affecting storytelling I have ever experienced. Lily Brooks-Dalton controls the length of each chapter to enhance pace, cultivates layers of empathy for every character’s perspective, and sets the stakes off the bat so that no characters are safe from nature’s brutal power. 

I rarely find a book which elicits verbal gasps, and unintended exclamations from me, but throughout The Light Pirate I couldn’t help but react with the characters. It is a testament to Dalton’s masterful development of empathy through thoughtful articulation of emotions. One can’t help but feel those same emotions reflected within themselves. 

Dalton creates a bouquet of complex and beautiful connections as we watch strangers become family. I was enamored by the relationship between Phyllis and Wanda, and the dynamics between magic and science explored in their characters. “Wanda is thrilled by the hunt for an explanation, but she doesn’t require one. To her, these organisms are a magic she doesn’t need to name. To Phyllis, they are science that requires categorization. And who is to say they cannot be both?” (168). 

Through beautifully selected, carefully strung sentences, we watch as these characters learn the art of “finding beauty amid the violence” (209) through “a simple and enduring desire to notice (301). 

The terror of natural disasters is in their revelation of our lack of control. Try as we might to command and shape the natural world, she will take it back. “Florida would be released back into the wild. Released, they said, like a creature the country had tried to tame but ultimately couldn’t,” (218). Amazingly, The Light Pirate explores the violence of environmental catastrophe and simultaneously reveals a glimmer of hope. A knowledge that the earth and her inhabitants will return to their natural cycles, and dawn will break on a new world each day.