All the little lights by Jamie McGuire - Book Review

When Elliot Youngblood first sees Catherine Calhoun, he thinks she is both the saddest and most beautiful person he’s ever met. As outcasts, the two of them form an unlikely friendship and grow closer until tragedy strikes Catherine, and Elliot is nowhere to be found.

Years later, Elliot returns, but he is now a popular athlete, and Catherine has been exiled to the fringes of society, keeping to herself, and spending all of her time helping her mom run her mysterious Bed and Breakfast.

Elliot is determined to win her back until he is accused of a crime, and Catherine refuses to leave his side even when her dark secret threatens to destroy any chance of happiness.

Jamie McGuire is the kind of writer who knows his readers well, often using redemptive arcs, and tragic pasts to frame his stories. His writing is suffused with warmth, tenderness, and humor, leaving little to be desired stylistically.

But it is his characters that leap off the page and take on a life of their own. He doesn’t shy away from giving us flawed humans, free of judgment. In fact, this is embodied in both Catherine and Elliot’s characters, two teenagers who met and fell in love as children, but still held steadfast to each other even when life kept throwing them curveballs.

Catherine, in particular, is particularly magnetic, her struggle to help her mother and be a normal teenager striking a chord with readers everywhere, and with the kind and compassionate Elliot to her rescue, it’s hard not to like them.

It’s the ending that sets this novel apart, unraveling everything you think you know about the novel until it comes apart at the seams, and you’re forced to examine what you thought you knew.

A powerful read.