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A review by gschwabauer
Each Night Was Illuminated by Jodi Lynn Anderson
adventurous
hopeful
mysterious
reflective
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
3.25
I thought this book was going to be more about wrestling with religious trauma, but it was actually about a character who lost her personal faith early on and felt awkward allowing anybody else to find out. Still interesting, but I feel like the book is being presented as a story about a young person grappling with belief, and I didn't honestly feel she did much grappling.
The relationship between the two primary characters felt pretty stereotypical to me. Not in a bad way--I thankfully did not hate Elias or find him sexist and annoying, so he's probably still in the top 50% of YA boys I've encountered this year. Their friendship certainly seemed like it'd be fun and mysterious and exciting and resonant, if you were there. But the author never quite convinced me I was part of their world. Also, I'm kinda over teen boys having really bizarre hobbies seemingly as, like, this thing they push the female lead to do with them, but I don't ever feel totally convinced that they're sincere in the hobby even though I think the story intends me to believe that, and then they dramatically aBaNdOn tHe HoBbY at a tense moment and I guess it means they're now very sad? I dunno it's just always a bit awkward. He was going through some truly crushing stuff and I was sympathetic, but he always kept himself at arm's length.
Lest this review sound too negative, I enjoy Anderson's sparse, direct prose when I'm in the right mood. Having a supportive and insightful nun as a secondary character was super cool. And honestly, the entire flood scene, which is a good third of the novel, was absolutely riveting. It is so, so hard to write that kind of intense action in a way that both feels believable and is easy to understand and imagine when translated through text, so huge props to the author for that! The night our protagonist spends in a hotel during a hurricane was incredibly well depicted. A bit weird to say that the hard-hitting action sequence was my favorite part of this meandering tale about feeling lonely in a small town and having a crush on a boy and thinking about life after death, but it's the truth.
The relationship between the two primary characters felt pretty stereotypical to me. Not in a bad way--I thankfully did not hate Elias or find him sexist and annoying, so he's probably still in the top 50% of YA boys I've encountered this year. Their friendship certainly seemed like it'd be fun and mysterious and exciting and resonant, if you were there. But the author never quite convinced me I was part of their world. Also, I'm kinda over teen boys having really bizarre hobbies seemingly as, like, this thing they push the female lead to do with them, but I don't ever feel totally convinced that they're sincere in the hobby even though I think the story intends me to believe that, and then they dramatically aBaNdOn tHe HoBbY at a tense moment and I guess it means they're now very sad? I dunno it's just always a bit awkward. He was going through some truly crushing stuff and I was sympathetic, but he always kept himself at arm's length.
Lest this review sound too negative, I enjoy Anderson's sparse, direct prose when I'm in the right mood. Having a supportive and insightful nun as a secondary character was super cool. And honestly, the entire flood scene, which is a good third of the novel, was absolutely riveting. It is so, so hard to write that kind of intense action in a way that both feels believable and is easy to understand and imagine when translated through text, so huge props to the author for that! The night our protagonist spends in a hotel during a hurricane was incredibly well depicted. A bit weird to say that the hard-hitting action sequence was my favorite part of this meandering tale about feeling lonely in a small town and having a crush on a boy and thinking about life after death, but it's the truth.