A review by faithl
The Sunlit Night by Rebecca Dinerstein Knight

4.0

My Rating:

This was the sort of book what made me go:



Then:



And then:



So yes, I do admit it was a very different and strange book but it was, in a good way. Every once in a while, you'll encounter this weird, cool book which kind of blows your mind and twists it at the same time. It was definitely this one.

This book was very brief in developing the love story between Frances and Yasha but very detailed in their backgrounds and previous lives. There was a good whole half of the book where they still lived separate lives and it wasn't till till about 3/4 through when their relationship actually begun to happen. This only added to the uniqueness of this book along with other aspects. Number one, because of it's setting - far north where the whole day was full of sunlight and two - introducing two very different characters and somehow combined them into one world. 

Frances was a very normal character. I really don't know how else to explain it but she didn't really have anything extraordinary about her except the fact that she travelled to a perpetually sunny place. But that only made me want to read about her more.

On the other hand, Yasha was very emotional and very reactive. His father had died and his mother had surprisingly returned from ditching them. And, he was basically your typical, angry, emotional teenager.

That was also something that struck me. This was a love story between a 21 year old woman and a 17 year old boy. You can imagine my face when I realised this and I surprisingly loved how Dinerstein dared to break relationship conventions.



The writing was as well, unusual. It had that post-modern feel and I could tell that Dinerstein was trying to break most of the conventions that YA books normally have. It was successful in that it definitely drew me in and left an impression in my mind. It used an odd combination of long and short sentences which kind of left me stumped and needing more at the same time.

In conclusion, a very interesting and unusual YA novel. It's something I would recommend if you're a little bit tired of reading paranormal/dystopian and need something a little big refreshing.