Book reflection - The Light We Lost

In a word - shitty. Haha.

So I bought this book off Thriftbooks for a few dollars because it was recommended as a well-loved and poignant contemporary romance novel. Was supposed to be incredibly deep and complicated and moving. I'm into romance, love, explorations of humanity, and depth of emotion so I was excited to try it out. This review will include mega spoilers so keep reading because you shouldn't read the book anyways. I'll go through the plot and then I'll give my 2 damn cents in the end. Oh, also, this was a Reese Witherspoon Book Club "pick" so I should have immediately deleted it from my cart and moved on but I figured they used to recommend stories of quality way before they started recommending absolute shit, right? I lived and I learned, guys. People make mistakes.

So, the plot is basically that two people in college, a man and a woman, meet on September 11, 2001 in New York City and experience the twin tower attacks together. They kind of have an incredible connection and feel like their lives are forever intertwined and they kiss and almost eat nachos together but the guy's ex-girlfriend calls and he ends up getting back together with her. Weird haha. A few years pass, college ends, everyone grows up a little bit, and these two reunite by accident in a bar right after the dude breaks up with that other girlfriend. The dude's name is Gabe and the girl's is Lucy. They end up falling in love and having a super intense love affair that all of Lucy's friends perceive as kind of unhealthy and bizarre. They move in together after a few months and have a lot of probably incredible sex and seem to have that kind of connection that people have with their first love. It was not chill, kind of all encompassing. So after a few months Gabe has this quarter life crisis and is like, "I need to leave New York and go to the middle east and become a world famous war photographer" which was his dream. And he lowkey asked Lucy to go with him but it was way too late into the conversation to make it seem like a legit or thoughtful option. And she didn't want to go anyways because she wanted to stay at her job working as a writer on a children's television show. So Gabe leaves like really soon haha and Lucy is majorly depressed and heartbroken and not doing well. Then a few months later or definitely within a year she meets this guy Darren. I think Lucy is 25 at this point and Darren is 30. They meet in the Hamptons at a shared house during the summer (that's so fun). And Darren is patient and pursues her consistently and she's constantly saying how much he makes her laugh and eventually like literally months later after they've been going on dates and not kissing for legit months she starts to find him kinda sexy and hot and they start having a physical relationship and become boyfriend and girlfriend. I don't know what to say but I didn't like Darren from the second I met him in the book. He irritated me. And part of the plot is that he's always doing "surprises" like he gets Lucy a dog, gets her a bike, gets her a birthday trip to Paris, etc. but she hates surprises and asks him repeatedly to include her when he's making these bigass plans that impact her life. Like, she wanted to pick out her own dog and get to plan her trip to Paris, you know? So yeah Darren is a bit of a bitch to me, but I can appreciate that he's probably a good partner for someone else. Eventually Lucy and Darren get married. Lucy and Gabe reconnect sometimes over the years via email. Lucy has a baby girl, Gabe comes back to NYC to visit, Darren approves Lucy meeting with her Gabe but only if the baby goes with her (idk, grow up?). Years pass. Lucy has another baby, baby boy. In the book it's kind of funny because the baby girl is like a real character with a plot and movement and the baby boy is just off with the nanny or not mentioned haha. Was weird. Eventually Gabe comes back to visit NYC. This is where it gets fucked up but also I was like okay FINALLY SOMETHING is fucking happening. Lucy thinks Darren is cheating on her because he's working weekends, taking mysterious phone calls, changed his phone password, and is acting cold to her. Why didn't she ask him? She told us, the readers, that she didn't want to face reality and have to upend her life if it was true, but I think she didn't bring it up because she lowkey wanted Darren to be cheating on her! So she could finally cheat on him back! With you know who...! Scumbag behavior. So Darren takes the kids to New Jersey to visit his parents and Lucy is like, I'm gonna have a self-care day and meet up with some friends. So she technically does what she told Darren she would do and while he is in NJ she gets a mani and then meets Gabe for lunch. She immediately tells Gabe she thinks Darren is cheating on her and they go back to his hotel room and fuck all afternoon and it's the best day ever and they tell each other they love each other and Gabe invites her to leave her family and come to Israel with him and she legit considers it, well, maybe she doesn't really believe it could happen but she's dreaming about it. So they leave each other and Lucy goes back home and is so cozy and happy and acting so in love and reading Mrs Chatterly's Lover like what the fuuuuuuu she is on cloud 9 and Darren and the kids come back. Darren reveals he secretly bought them a summer house in the Hamptons which was on their bucket list and it becomes clear that he was not cheating on Lucy but he was just being shady cus he's a shady dude. So Lucy fucks Darren!!! That day!!! I can't believe it. So what do you think happens one month later? What do you think? Lucy is obviously pregnant. Gabe reaches out and is like, can you come live with me in Israel yet? And she is like, this isn't a great time for me to leave my family but you should definitely stay over there and we can talk later. She doesn't mention the pregnancy, which I guess I understand but she lowkey should have. Then guess what happens? Gabe obviously dies. Well, worse, because he was in an explosion that left him braindead and the hospital didn't know he was DNR so they're keeping him alive via machines and guess who he elected to be in charge of his health care? Lucy for sure. So she is a few months pregnant and decides to fly alone to Tel-Aviv I think to see Gabe in person and say goodbye but she doesn't even know he's braindead at this point. Darren is like, don't go, this is wild, but in the end he lets her go obviously. And when she's there she decides to do a paternity test to see who the father of her unborn baby is. And we didn't find out until the last page but I'll tell you right now that it was Gabe. And after a day or so she "kills" Gabe, like she uses that word to describe taking him off life support. Like she tells her unborn baby that she killed his father. So fucking weird. And the last page is a letter to her unborn son telling him all about how his father is the absolute love of her life and the best man she ever knew and the most special and vibrant person in the world and she doesn't know if this letter will be delivered after she dies, or when she is alive, or never, she just wanted to explain herself. Thoughtful of her. And that's the end. Oh, there is also a plotline of Gabe coming to NYC pre-extramarital affair where he has an exhibition of his photography portfolio because he is super famous and at the end of the exhibition there's a room full of massive photographs he took of Lucy when they were young and in love and it pissed Darren and Lucy off. That felt important to include.

Alright, so I think this book was mega shitty and I realized a few days after I finished it that I hated it. Which is unfortunate because I wanted to like it. The reason I hated it was because it was pretty well-written and the storyline was compelling enough to keep me coming back for more, it was interesting enough that I finished the book. But I felt uncomfortable the entire time I was reading it. Like, I felt an anxiety or dysregulation in my body as I was taking the story into my mind. I can't put my finger on it, maybe it will come to me later, but I almost felt like it was taking my life from me, or something. Something really creepy like that. Ew, that is so creepy! I hate that idea. Ew!!! Another reason I hate this book is because what was the point? Really, what was the point? I didn't feel like I received anything meaningful or valuable or even neutral and harmless by imbibing it. I feel like it actually made me feel badly. It's a book about a woman who stayed in love with someone who left her but she got married and had children with another man regardless. Actually, I would argue she was obsessed with him, not in love with. That's not love, the back and forth, the inconsistency. That's some weirdo addiction. And Gabe, he was complicit to her madness. He left and then kept coming back every few years just to remind her he left. I'm not saying she should have waited for him but she shouldn't have just met and married Darren, the fucking loser, before she could be her own person without Gabe. It's like she turned Gabe into her own personal parasite and kept him there forever, on purpose. And Darren's really not even that bad but I do not like that guy. And let's give Darren some responsibility for the madness too, why not. He never knew the depth of Lucy's feelings for Gabe, appropriately enough I guess, but why'd he keep doing shit and never telling her? That's so fucking annoying. Like, she told him she didn't like that over and over. She was like, I don't like surprises. Also, can you respect me as a human being and not just as an accessory to your life? Sorry, I don't have the energy to get into that aspect of their relationship. They were only dating a year before he got them a surprise puppy. And he called her adorable for caring about her job. I'm really so happy to get this book out of my beautiful home. I'm getting scared of it the more I think about it, because of how it made me feel so uncomfortable and I just tried to push past those feelings and finish the book and then the ending was the most dipshit disturbing situation. Like, there was no payoff. High risk, zero reward. Genuinely, I feel worse for reading this. I wish I had used the time I spent reading this doing anything else. I think in heaven they're gonna give me the 5-10 hours I wasted on this book and I'll get to, I don't know, swim up a waterfall or something. You know when you date someone really horrific and you're scared to date ever again? I feel that way now. Like, great, I tried something new and look where it got me. I am a huge proponent of not finishing bad books though so that's really all I can do in the future, pay attention to my gut, not finish them, and get them the hell out of my house. I might sage it before I give it away. I don't want the next person to feel like this.

Anyways, I love to read! I'm already reading something else lovely and good called The Stone Witch of Florence and it is healing my brain after this fucking nightmare of a story. And I'm reading Care of the Soul, and I started Cat's Cradle but I'm putting it away until it calls to me better. This was really fun, I can't wait to do more. Love you and good luck, xoxo.