This Raging Light
Author: Estelle Laure
Publication Date: January 14th 2016
Publisher: Orchard Books
~A copy was provided by the publisher in exchange for an honest review~
How is it that you suddenly notice a person? How is it that one day Digby was my best friend's admittedly cute twin brother, and then the next he stole air, gave jitters, twisted my insides up?
Lucille has bigger problems than falling for her best friend's unavailable brother. Her mom has gone, leaving her to look after her sister, Wren. With bills mounting up and appearances to keep, Lucille is raging against her life but holding it together - just.
A stunning debut to devour in one sitting, Laure captures completely the agony and ecstasy of first love.
“This is home. I forgot it was.
Music carries the weight of being human, takes it away so you don’t have to
think at all, you just have to listen. Music tells every story there is.”
Oh, wow. Even though I do have
mixed feelings for This Raging Light, that's all I'm thinking right now. Wow.
Wow, this book is a hot mess. A
complicated hot mess. But, in a good way. Kind of. See? It's hard to explain,
it should be hard to like the characters, but it's not. Well, not for me. I
like my characters messy and hard to like. They're flawed, they're realistic.
Lucille is...not a horrible
person. Neither is Digby. They're good people who make bad choices and let me
start by saying whilst I don't condone cheating, God I shipped Digby and
Lucille so much. They fit. They're quirky and he made her happy when
her life was insane, he helped her when she couldn't help herself. He picked
her up. And yes, Lucille liked him a long time before they happened, she may
have, kind of made the first move. But they both done it. The blame is not all on Lucille, okay?
The way I see it, I felt like she
cracked, all the shit that was put on her shoulders by her parents and her
wanting. Wanting a normal life. Wanting parents that loved her, that wouldn't
leave her. Hell, wanting one parent who was that. Wanting a home. Wanting to
not be doing what she had to do to survive and to keep her sister, Wren, with
her. Wanting normal. Wanting a life. And wanting Digby.
She was trying her hardest to
create a semi normal home life for Wren, and looking out for her so she didn't
have to feel the way she did. But, who was looking out for her?
Digby. That's who.
It's not all about the romance,
it's part of it, part of the way the story goes, but it's about family. It's
about the way that sometimes people are not cut out for it. It's about adult's majorly fucking up and not taking responsibility. It's about a seventeen-year-old
girl who tries her fucking hardest to keep everything together while it's
falling apart. It's strong, and it's chaotic, and its Lucille's life, and she
grows so much within those pages it's surreal to think of someone going through
that, and honestly? I don't think I'd be able to do it.
The writing is just as quirky,
and messy as the story, it fits, it creates the atmosphere and while it took
some getting used to it, once I did, I couldn't put it down. The only reason this isn't a five for me is because of the loose ties.
Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night is probably
my favourite poem, so of course that's what drew me to This Raging Light, and
I'm so glad it did, because Lucille is not a character I'm going to forget for
a while, and neither is her story.
Rating: 4/5
