Cold Light (edition 2011)

I received this book as a Goodreads ARC giveaway. This was a great book and I really enjoy it ( )

This book was not at all what I was expecting. Laura is an adult watching the memorial for her friends who died years before. When the mayor starts to dig and then stops abruptly, only Laura knows why. It's because he found a body, and only Laura knows who it is and how they got there. The story goes back and forth between the present and the past, back to the summer where Laura's friends died. Secrets come to light and we learn the truth about the dead person buried.

I would love to say that this book blew me away, but unfortunately, it didn't. In fact, I'm not sure why I kept on reading other than I wanted to know about the body. Laura was a very unlikable character, a follower, constantly complaining and with no redeeming qualities. Her friends were even worse. They were rude, snotty, pretentious little jerks and I just didn't understand why Laura didn't tell them to screw off and be done with them. I guess that's why I didn't like her. Laura's mother was a horrible, horrible person and I wanted nothing more than to jump through the pages and strangle her myself.

Other than the rotten characters, the writing itself was not my favorite style. It seemed to drag on forever and focus on little things that ultimately didn't really matter in the end. It took forever to come to the climax, and even then I was let down. I suppose the "twist" ending might do the job for some people. but I saw it coming and was not impressed.

So sadly, this book just wasn't for me. Don't let that deter you though, perhaps I am just an anxious reader and was desperate for the story to unfold. If you like slower, meatier reads, then give this one a shot. ( )

Underwhelming story. What felt right is the way the author wrote about the utter self-absorption of the teenagers. Not one I'll pass along to others. ( )

A ground-breaking ceremony is taking place for a memorial to a young girl and her boyfriend, now ten years dead. Watching the television broadcast is the now grown girl's best friend, Suddenly, it all goes awry as the spade hits something it shouldn't. "You can tell from their faces that something has gone wrong. But I'm the one who knows straightaway that the mayor has found a body. And I know who it is." Thus starts Jenn Ashworth's atmospheric novel about the friendship of two fourteen year old girls, jealousy and reminiscence. Ashworth is at her best in capturing the anxiety of adolescence, the competitive nature of young girls, and striving to be more grown up than they should. If this is a time of your life which you've done your best to forget, you may wish to skip this book. If you enjoy psychological dark dramas, this might be for you. ( )

The Short of It:

As the title suggests, the light that falls upon these characters is a harsh, unrelenting light. It seeps in where it’s not welcome and leaves its chilling aftermath behind.

The Rest of It:

It has taken me WEEKS to write this review. Not to actually write it, but to ponder WHAT I’d actually write about once I finally sat down to do it. It’s not that it was a difficult book to read. It wasn’t. It’s not that I couldn’t get into the characters, because I did. I think it had to do with the fact that when I finished it, I was like…”Hmmm. Interesting.” Then a week later, I was like…”Hmmm. It was so dark!” Then each day after that, I continued to think about it and it dawned on me, that what I thought was a book that fell into the YA category, really wasn’t that at all.

That made me ponder it some more.

There are no likable characters to speak of. No one in the book would ever be my friend. Lola is like any other fourteen-year-old in that she wants to fit in and when she hooks up with Chloe, she finds that niche, that “in” if you will. Chloe is pretty and popular and really, very into herself. She is the classic bad girl. She drinks and smokes and steals things and she gets Lola to do the same. But it’s obvious from the beginning that Lola has a lot going on in her head. Her family is dysfunctional and her dad, although too smart for his britches has some issues, as well as her mother.

After Chloe hooks up with a real loser of a guy, things begin to go downhill for Lola. She’s not Chloe’s center anymore and often takes a backseat to Chloe’s boyfriend but when something happens to Chloe and her boyfriend, the town paints a very different picture of the girl Lola knew.

Ten years later, when the town decides to build a monument in Chloe’s honor, Lola finds herself revisiting her past and what really happened that fateful night.

Cold Light is a quiet mystery that hits you over the head long after you've closed the book. It took awhile for me to digest the ending but after much thought, the ending was perfect and quite fitting given what I knew about the characters. I know that getting hit over the head does not sound like a good thing but for me, it was. It was a departure from what I expected it to be and I am always impressed when a book surprises me in some way.

Ashworth does a beautiful job of capturing just how obsessive teenage friendships can be without preaching about the dangers of mixing with the wrong crowd. It’s suspenseful and well-paced and not necessarily for the YA crowd although I can see them reading it as well.

For more reviews, visit my blog: Book Chatter ( )