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A review by reneedecoskey
The Light We Lost by Jill Santopolo
emotional
fast-paced
3.0
It's a love story (I guess?), which isn't really my genre at all, but I'm easily influenced by Instagram and 9/11 stories (the book begins on 9/11 when Lucy and Gabe meet at Columbia University). A few years later they meet again and enter into an intense relationship. For reasons I won't divulge here, it eventually ends. Lucy goes on to marry someone else, but she never forgets Gabe and Gabe never forgets her. If it sounds like every Hallmark or Lifetime movie, there's probably a reason for that.
The narrative voice is Lucy recounting her and Gabe's entire story TO Gabe, and at the end you find out why. The book is mostly character-driven and not plot-driven, so if you like a lot of action moving the story forward, just know that this isn't that book. That said, it's quick-paced and highly readable. It's engaging and engrossing.
There's a lot in this book that questions fate versus free will. I'm not a huge fan of the "one who got away" trope. I'm also not a fan of the "they're just with the wrong people and this is really a beautiful love story because it's destiny!" trope. The thing is that all of these "love" stories just seem so toxic to me. Someone is manipulative. Someone makes some kind of martyr-like sacrifice in the name of love. Someone else ends up as collateral damage. It makes me want to puke a little, but also... it's toxic and unhealthy and I have a hard time reading this type of book as anything but. Change the perspective of the story and it's another story entirely that can paint the sympathetic character in a very unsympathetic light. I feel like books like this set unrealistic expectations and even when their complications are realistic, everything gets tied up with a neat little bow, even when it really doesn't. A huge part of this book was left unresolved, at least for me. I suspect it's by design and we get to imagine what Lucy's husband does next. I wanted more of HIS story.
Gabe as a character made me angry and frustrated with this book in the same way that the Stephen character in Carola Lovering's Tell Me Lies made me angry and frustrated with the book. And I'm the only person I know who's read that book and hated it, so take that for what you will when it comes to my criticisms here.
I also found it a little bit too on-the-nose that Gabe makes a show of noting that Lucy --> Luce --> Luz, which is the Spanish word for Light. Then he keeps making a point to let it be known, even in really inappropriate circumstances, that Lucy is his light. Like... to the point where a volunteer at his gallery sees her and says something like "it's you! You're his light!" despite not even knowing her. ::Insert eleventy-billion eye-rolls here::
To be clear, I didn't think this book was bad, despite how it sounds. It's just a genre that I personally struggle with but try to read every now and then, especially because, like I said, I'm easily influenced by Bookstagram and 9/11 stories. I'd say that if you liked books like Me Before You by JoJo Moyes or One Day by David Nicholls, or even Tell Me Lies by Carola Lovering, you'd probably like this book. 3/5 for me.
The narrative voice is Lucy recounting her and Gabe's entire story TO Gabe, and at the end you find out why. The book is mostly character-driven and not plot-driven, so if you like a lot of action moving the story forward, just know that this isn't that book. That said, it's quick-paced and highly readable. It's engaging and engrossing.
There's a lot in this book that questions fate versus free will. I'm not a huge fan of the "one who got away" trope. I'm also not a fan of the "they're just with the wrong people and this is really a beautiful love story because it's destiny!" trope. The thing is that all of these "love" stories just seem so toxic to me. Someone is manipulative. Someone makes some kind of martyr-like sacrifice in the name of love. Someone else ends up as collateral damage. It makes me want to puke a little, but also... it's toxic and unhealthy and I have a hard time reading this type of book as anything but. Change the perspective of the story and it's another story entirely that can paint the sympathetic character in a very unsympathetic light. I feel like books like this set unrealistic expectations and even when their complications are realistic, everything gets tied up with a neat little bow, even when it really doesn't. A huge part of this book was left unresolved, at least for me. I suspect it's by design and we get to imagine what Lucy's husband does next. I wanted more of HIS story.
Gabe as a character made me angry and frustrated with this book in the same way that the Stephen character in Carola Lovering's Tell Me Lies made me angry and frustrated with the book. And I'm the only person I know who's read that book and hated it, so take that for what you will when it comes to my criticisms here.
I also found it a little bit too on-the-nose that Gabe makes a show of noting that Lucy --> Luce --> Luz, which is the Spanish word for Light. Then he keeps making a point to let it be known, even in really inappropriate circumstances, that Lucy is his light. Like... to the point where a volunteer at his gallery sees her and says something like "it's you! You're his light!" despite not even knowing her. ::Insert eleventy-billion eye-rolls here::
To be clear, I didn't think this book was bad, despite how it sounds. It's just a genre that I personally struggle with but try to read every now and then, especially because, like I said, I'm easily influenced by Bookstagram and 9/11 stories. I'd say that if you liked books like Me Before You by JoJo Moyes or One Day by David Nicholls, or even Tell Me Lies by Carola Lovering, you'd probably like this book. 3/5 for me.