Lori Lansens

A special thank you to NetGalley and Penguin Random House Canada for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

This Little Light takes place over a frenzied 48 hours in the near future (2023). Teenagers Rory and Feliza are on the run after they are accused of bombing their posh Californian high school on the night of the Virtue Ball. There's a bounty on their heads and everyone is trying to track them down. Rory's mom—an activist and lawyer—has been implicated in her daughter's crimes show more where her dad—who left them for another woman—is cooperating with the authorities.

Right-wing Christians have gained the upper hand so abortion and birth control has been re-criminalized. Girls are expected to pledge their virginity and know their roles. Rory is looking for someone and something she can trust. She's a smart girl who is not only cynical and scathing, but scared and emotional. What she writes is painful, intense, passionate, funny at times, and despondent.

For a teen, Rory is intelligent and fiercely independent. She is an incredibly strong character both in her voice and actions. Rory is an urgent narrator—you can almost feel the palpable keystrokes in her blog entries. Lansens captures her voice perfectly and the fever pace of the narrative is spot on. Remember, this novel only spans 48 hours, but it is enough time because Rory writes about past events that give credibility to her theory as to who is responsible for the bomb.

The plot is taut, tense, and timely. With the issues of reproductive rights, immigration, religion, and sexuality, I couldn't help but think of The Handmaid's Tale and how although this story is set in the future, the topics are relevant today. What Lansens achieves in this work is nothing short of extraordinary. And that ending...whoa! I can't give anything away, but it was a sucker punch right to the gut.

After being a fan of Lansens since reading and falling in love with the lyrical Rush Home Road years ago, I highly recommend this book. This Little Light burns bright. Congratulations, Lori. show less

This Little Light by Lori Lansens is a dystopian (unless you belong to the Cult of Evangelicalism, in which case you might think just the opposite) novel set in the very near future (2024).

I was torn on a five star scale between a four and a five. The illustration of the current craziness taken to its logical end is important to understand. The inherent contradictions between what is said (and demanded of OTHERS) and what the hypocrites do are made crystal clear here. Even a high school show more student can see and understand the tremendous immorality and unethical "beliefs" of these people. And that is in addition to the dangers of both misusing and mismanaging social media. And, as is usually the case in the US, which is where this is set, those who pay the highest price are women and people of color.

The main thing that made me consider a four star rating was really more about my slowness in getting used to Rory's voice, that of a teenager. Namely a teenager in a privileged community and the types of speech they might use. But, in fact, I did become accustomed to the phrasing and the slang and, at least where I am, there are young people who speak like that and especially who post comments like that. So while it doesn't represent every young person, it does represent a fair number of those like Rory.

While the action of the immediate story takes place over just a couple days, we get background in flashback form. If you dislike flashbacks as a way to fill in the past without turning the book into a slower paced story taking place over a longer time frame, then you may get frustrated here. I found the flashbacks to be effective in slowly filling me in while the action spirals out of control.

I think there are probably many ways to understand this story. One is simply as a dystopian novel using current events taken to an extreme as the foundation. If, like me, you think we have already gone beyond extreme in our having a pathological liar as POTUS, faux Christians wanting to tell everyone what they can do, and a complete disregard for those different from us, then this is not just a novel but a warning that we need to stop this nonsense. By whatever means necessary! For me, this is a call to arms.

I recommend this to fans of dystopian literature as well as those who ask themselves every day 'what new hell are these faux Christians and their Trumpenfuehrer leader going to try to unleash on us today?' If you're one of them, well, you'll probably side with wackos in this book.

Reviewed from a copy made available by the publisher via NetGalley. show less

there is so much going on here. it's got great writing, engaging characters, a fast paced story, and touches on all kinds of issues like class and race and immigration and abortion. it's set in the near future (2024; this came out in 2019) when laws have been passed to further restrict women and religious groups are ruling most things. this takes it all just a step or two further, and comes to totally logical conclusions. it's a warning, and it's a reminder of how things can be. it's show more powerfully done, with a strong voice and a couple of characters in particular that i was really rooting for.

this is really, really well done.

at first i couldn't believe the ending, but when i thought about it, it was the only thing that made any sense. but it was really too bad it had to end that way. i really wanted her to be ok and to be vindicated and for the right people to be blamed for the catastrophe. but in the end it's more powerful this way; somehow i just didn't see it coming. i'd gotten too caught up in her escape and her story. show less

I received this book through the Early Reviewers program. In a word, I loved it. The main character is a woman named Mary Gooch. Her husband disappears on the day before their 25th anniversary, and the book is about her search for him and her finding her real self along the way. Mary is obese. She said she'd kill herself the day she weighed over 300 pounds, and when the book opens, she weighs in at 302. (Needless to say, she doesn't kill herself, or it would be a really short book.) On her show more travels, Mary finds herself on an airplane across from a painfully thin woman, sees the woman nibbling on her fingernail, and thinks that she must be hungry, much as Mary was always finding herself hungry, and she thought:

"At what point had food ceased to nourish and sought to torture?"

I am Mary Gooch - not in her initial hermitlike existence and narrow worldview, but in size. No, I don't tip the scales at 302 pounds, but I'm closer to it than I care to contemplate. Mary's story has inspired me to make some changes I should have made years ago. I felt her pain in the early part of the book when she was at her heaviest, felt the separation that she must have felt, brought on by her size. I cheered for her as she took one baby step after another, starting her search for Gooch, first looking closer to home, then venturing out well beyond her comfort zone - getting on a plane, walking up a hill, all the little things she forced herself to do. She went looking for her husband and found herself, and conquered her love/hate relationship with food in the process. The book doesn't tie everything up in a nice neat bow at the end, but I'm OK with that. It works here. I was thrilled to see Mary transformed, and hopefully I'll soon see myself transformed in a similar fashion. show less