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A review by dissendiumnox
The Sunlight Pilgrims by Jenni Fagan
4.0
In 2020 Ice Age Scotland, Dylan moves from London to a faraway caravan park between land and sea. There, in the worst winter humankind has lived through, he meets Constance and her daughter, Stella, former boy who is struggling to get her new identity accepted by her classmates and their community.
I think this is actually the first time I read a book discussing transgender people. And it was so well done. I mean, I don't have much reading experience in this field, as I just mentioned, but honestly, you can't help but feel for Stella and want her to be happy in her own skin. It's truly sad to see her trying to live as herself (a girl) and everyone else picking and insulting her because she used to be a boy. It was unbelievably touching, all the more because Stella is an incredible human being, the life of this novel and just GREAT. I love her okay ? She's precious and she deserves all the good in the world.
The book isn't just about Stella, it is also about Dylan finding out about his identity and about love, and friendship. I think it could be read like a nordic tale or something. It's not magical but it has the tone of a fairy tale somehow. It is about so many important thing like ecology, and roots and sticking out for yourself, and judgmental people. All of it, so well done !
And this writing, seriously, this writing was superb. I should have known when I saw that this was published by Hogarth Press in England, because that's Virginia Woolf's publishing house and OF COURSE I would love their publications ! Some sentences, descriptions and wording were so beautiful, I re-read them many times trying to grasp the entirety of their beauty and meaning.
"Her mother resembled winter"
This book is a gem, raw and unsophisticated, full of beauty and light, when the entire the world is slowly, but surely, tipping over in the darkness.
I think this is actually the first time I read a book discussing transgender people. And it was so well done. I mean, I don't have much reading experience in this field, as I just mentioned, but honestly, you can't help but feel for Stella and want her to be happy in her own skin. It's truly sad to see her trying to live as herself (a girl) and everyone else picking and insulting her because she used to be a boy. It was unbelievably touching, all the more because Stella is an incredible human being, the life of this novel and just GREAT. I love her okay ? She's precious and she deserves all the good in the world.
The book isn't just about Stella, it is also about Dylan finding out about his identity and about love, and friendship. I think it could be read like a nordic tale or something. It's not magical but it has the tone of a fairy tale somehow. It is about so many important thing like ecology, and roots and sticking out for yourself, and judgmental people. All of it, so well done !
And this writing, seriously, this writing was superb. I should have known when I saw that this was published by Hogarth Press in England, because that's Virginia Woolf's publishing house and OF COURSE I would love their publications ! Some sentences, descriptions and wording were so beautiful, I re-read them many times trying to grasp the entirety of their beauty and meaning.
"Her mother resembled winter"
This book is a gem, raw and unsophisticated, full of beauty and light, when the entire the world is slowly, but surely, tipping over in the darkness.