Reading by Lightning
by Joan Thomas
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Description
Lily Piper and her family live in an ephemeral world, due to collapse any moment when the Lord comes to pluck His faithful from the drought-ravaged Prairie. Lily tries to be ready, but she is restless, not the daughter she feels her mother wants. As she tries to invent herself, she conjures, too, an imagined past for her beloved father in an effort to understand him and the demons he battles. In her teens, Lily is sent to England to care for her Grandmother and further explores the delicious show more question of who she might become. She falls in love with her adopted cousin, learns to experience life in all its ambiguity, and waits with the rest of England for World War II to start -- until the news she has been dreading arrives on the doorstep, and she is called home to face a future she thought she had escaped. Reading by Lightningis a Bildungsroman of great wit and depth. Thomas's prose is wry and intimate, elegant and devastatingly funny. Her engrossing story of Lily Piper tells us something of how we can make sense of a future when the future is something we can hardly imagine. show lessTags
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Member Reviews
This is a slow read that is weighted down by the middle section where the protagonist spends some years in England, but its the closest I've seen a book come to Lawrence and much of it is beautifully written.
Read in August, 2013
Fascinated with book 1 in the novel, we meet the MCs and settle in to the depression era terrain of the Manitoban prairie of cental Canada. Description of the realities of Lily's father's journey from England to Canada vs the minister's imaginative utopian settlement that set him on the journey; realities of prairie life hardships; relational realities of Lily's childhood journey to adulthood; intensely tangible. Now sixteen, at her grandfather's passing, Lily's father sends her to England to care for his mother...
book 2 - England
Lily meets her father's family who welcome her into their lives as one of their own. She is someone of importance to them. Sisters. Cousins. A Nana who loves and needs her as she struggles show more with health as Lily's homemaking skills prove essential. Much social and relational growth combined with the opportunity to continue her education adds to her self confidence. The threatened impending war becomes reality. As does the call to return to her homeland, Canada...
book 3 - back home
[without giving away spoilers]
Her grown brother enlists for the Canadian war effort. Upon his departure, homelife erupts with complications. Lily's outgrown the old ways of family doing and being. She's been stretched and no longer fits the framework of her mother's creation. How will Lily survive when she can't choose another life path?
A story that leaves readers without conclusions but enough information to draw one's own. show less
Fascinated with book 1 in the novel, we meet the MCs and settle in to the depression era terrain of the Manitoban prairie of cental Canada. Description of the realities of Lily's father's journey from England to Canada vs the minister's imaginative utopian settlement that set him on the journey; realities of prairie life hardships; relational realities of Lily's childhood journey to adulthood; intensely tangible. Now sixteen, at her grandfather's passing, Lily's father sends her to England to care for his mother...
book 2 - England
Lily meets her father's family who welcome her into their lives as one of their own. She is someone of importance to them. Sisters. Cousins. A Nana who loves and needs her as she struggles show more with health as Lily's homemaking skills prove essential. Much social and relational growth combined with the opportunity to continue her education adds to her self confidence. The threatened impending war becomes reality. As does the call to return to her homeland, Canada...
book 3 - back home
[without giving away spoilers]
Her grown brother enlists for the Canadian war effort. Upon his departure, homelife erupts with complications. Lily's outgrown the old ways of family doing and being. She's been stretched and no longer fits the framework of her mother's creation. How will Lily survive when she can't choose another life path?
A story that leaves readers without conclusions but enough information to draw one's own. show less
Reading by Lightning by Joan Thomas, published by Goose Lane Editions, made its way into my mailbox from Mini Book Expo. It's a coming of age novel at a time that the world is on the brink of World War II, particularly in England.
It took me a long while to get into this book, more than 100 pages, which was disheartening. In Book One readers will wander through Lily Piper's musings and her interactions or lack thereof with her parents. The wavering narrative and tangents of Lily drag on for long stretches, and readers may have a hard time following along. Her relationship with her mother is cantankerous at times and Lily is often portrayed as a wayward child led by the sin in her heart. There are a number of instances where Lily wanders show more off with boys alone, which in many ways should ruin her reputation.
"Wonderful for your maidenly inhibitions (going to hand me the flask and then reaching around me to unscrew it himself and in the process circling me with both arms). The way we tussled around and he pressed the mouth of the flask to my mouth and I resisted or pretended to resist, whiskey meanwhile sliding hotly in through my lips and dribbling down my chin and onto my bathing suit." (Page 88)
To read more, go here: http://savvyverseandwit.blogspot.com/2009/03/reading-by-lightning-by-joan-thomas... show less
It took me a long while to get into this book, more than 100 pages, which was disheartening. In Book One readers will wander through Lily Piper's musings and her interactions or lack thereof with her parents. The wavering narrative and tangents of Lily drag on for long stretches, and readers may have a hard time following along. Her relationship with her mother is cantankerous at times and Lily is often portrayed as a wayward child led by the sin in her heart. There are a number of instances where Lily wanders show more off with boys alone, which in many ways should ruin her reputation.
"Wonderful for your maidenly inhibitions (going to hand me the flask and then reaching around me to unscrew it himself and in the process circling me with both arms). The way we tussled around and he pressed the mouth of the flask to my mouth and I resisted or pretended to resist, whiskey meanwhile sliding hotly in through my lips and dribbling down my chin and onto my bathing suit." (Page 88)
To read more, go here: http://savvyverseandwit.blogspot.com/2009/03/reading-by-lightning-by-joan-thomas... show less
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Awards and Honors
Common Knowledge
- People/Characters
- Lily Piper; Russell Bates
- Important events
- World War II
- First words
- A brilliant summer day, and an early version of me steps out of the general store in town.
- Blurbers
- Powning, Beth
- Disambiguation notice
- copy has the wrong ISBN which brought in the wrong cover, however the member catalogue entry and tagging of the book Canadian indicates the book is the Joan Thomas book Reading by Lightning.
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- Popularity
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- Reviews
- 3
- Rating
- (3.46)
- Languages
- English
- Media
- Paper, Audiobook, Ebook
- ISBNs
- 4
- ASINs
- 1
