How the light gets in (original 2003; edition 2005)

Hmmm. Well I thought I'd enjoyed Carry Me Down when I read it a couple of years ago but it looks like my memory is playing tricks on me from the looks of what I wrote at the time. Interesting. I did however really like this book. Sixteen year old Lou moves from her own family in Sydney to somewhere near Chicago to stay with the Harding family as an exchange student at a local high school. She makes her own family out to be, on the whole, a pretty appalling bunch living in near squalor and the American family who take her in are very much in the well off, large house, tanned with perfect teeth mould. Lou is obviously clever but is clearly going to have real trouble fitting in here. The first person narration means that we see how everything falls apart from inside Lou's head. This makes it really compelling to read and you don't end up agreeing with what others think of Lou (or at least I didn't). I was enjoying the book loads and preparing myself for being let down by the ending - mostly because I couldn't figure out where the author was leading to at all. But I wasn't let down - it was very well concluded.

I enjoyed this book immensely, but less for the story, characters, or conclusion than for the writing. Lou's perspective is so often thought provoking. She isn't necessarily right, yet her assessments ring true clearly with some things while she appears oblivious about others. It is stated that Lou has a high IQ, yet she fails to be smart over and over again in the ways that would benefit her, more out of childish beliefs than due to self-destructive impulses. Hyland captures that contrast in a way that is fair and believable.

Several times while reading, I paused to savor a passage or paragraph. I laughed often with pleasure at this novel's wit. It has a crushingly bitter ending, however, managing to be both inevitable and unexpected at the same time. ( )

I was drawn into this absorbing first novel by MJ Hyland.

It tells the story of Lou Conner, a brilliant 16 yr old who leaves her poverty striken home in Sydney and gets places in a one year exchange program in a suburb of Chicago.

Told from Lou's point of view, she is a brash, self-destructive, hormone fueled teen. Her host family is odd, especially from her lens. The father is always crying, the mother loves to hug others, she is ignored by the snotty daughter, and the son borders (or not?) on sexual abuse. I am still trying to work out the ending. ( )

Like many teenagers, I read The Catcher In The Rye repeatedly while growing up. Holden Caulfield's paranoia, cynicism and self-reproach speak clearly to you at that age. I've read many books since that attempt to capture the same suffocating sense of teenage alienation, some more successful than others, but MJ Hyland's How The Light Gets In comes closer than most. Loneliness, self-delusion (and destruction), and doomed inevitability play a large part in the story of Louise, a foreign exchange student from a poor Australian background who goes to stay with a wealthy American family for a year. Hyland achieves a fine balance in making us both sympathise with Louise and want to give her a good slap. Still, she has a way of looking at the world which proves entrancing at times, making you see things from a perspective you might never have considered - or offering observations (as in the extract above) that had me nodding in agreement.

Read the full review at my blog. ( )

Kind of like a female, modern Catcher in the Rye, but without the cleverness. It was just alright. ( )