Rainlight

Rating:
Summary: poignant and delicate ... a sure winner
Review: A tragic accident brings out musings from 4 different characters and reveals secrets between each other that some goes a long way.

This book is beautifully written. It's poignant, delicate, touching ... reading it feels like having a soft velvety whisper of air on your skin. Each character grows on you that you feel like you know them very well. Each secret is revealed flawlessly. And after reading her 2nd novel -- Shadow Baby -- I think Ms. McGhee is very good in writing about child characters.


Rating:
Summary: A gem of a book about the place I grew up.
Review: I grew up in exactly that part of Upstate New York, and McGhee captures perfectly what life is like there, the insularity, the long winters, the ever-present mountains. She names places and towns I know well, and fictionalizes others I also know.

Beyond that familiarity, her book is crowded with real people whose lives are constrained by where they live, the limitation of small town existance. I've been recommending this, and her other books, to everyone I know.

Rating:
Summary: A gem of a book about the place I grew up.
Review: I grew up in exactly that part of Upstate New York, and McGhee captures perfectly what life is like there, the insularity, the long winters, the ever-present mountains. She names places and towns I know well, and fictionalizes others I also know.

Beyond that familiarity, her book is crowded with real people whose lives are constrained by where they live, the limitation of small town existance. I've been recommending this, and her other books, to everyone I know.

Rating:
Summary: One of my new favorite books
Review: I read an average of 10 to 20 books a month. While most of these books are good and a few of them may be very fine novels, very few of them make me excited about an author and about the novel. Rainlight is such a book. The writing is incredible, not just for a first novel, but for any novel. While the multi-narrator format has been in use since at least William Faulkner, Alison McGhee makes it feel fresh and insightful.

The story is fast paced and while the novel is emotionally charged by the many viewpoints of the characters, this is such a well told story. This book really is that good. This is a somewhat difficult review to write because it is hard not to gush about this book...and i don't gush very often. This is worth your time and money.

Rating:
Summary: One of my new favorite books
Review: I read an average of 10 to 20 books a month. While most of these books are good and a few of them may be very fine novels, very few of them make me excited about an author and about the novel. Rainlight is such a book. The writing is incredible, not just for a first novel, but for any novel. While the multi-narrator format has been in use since at least William Faulkner, Alison McGhee makes it feel fresh and insightful.

The story is fast paced and while the novel is emotionally charged by the many viewpoints of the characters, this is such a well told story. This book really is that good. This is a somewhat difficult review to write because it is hard not to gush about this book...and i don't gush very often. This is worth your time and money.

Rating:
Summary: A must-read!
Review: RAINLIGHT is an expertly woven tale of a town in the Adirondacks torn apart by the freak death of its beloved Starr Williams. As vividly portrayed characters work to find ways to manage their grief, the magic is in the details. Although these characters are dealing with sadness, McGhee manages to make them appealing. I found myself wishing I could sit down in Crystal's diner for hamburgers and milkshakes, spending some leisurely time with Tim and Mallie--maybe even give the gift of something shiny to Crystal's retarded son Johnny. McGhee's world is one that is difficult to leave behind. A wonderful wonderful book!

Rating:
Summary: On memory
Review: The first novel I read by Alison McGhee, SHADOW BABY, touched me more than most of the books I have read in the last few years. After reading RAINLIGHT, I'm certain that I've discovered a writer who ranks as one of my favorites.

This novel is set in the same small town as SHADOW BABY, in the Adirondacks, in upstate New York, and features some of the characters who appeared briefly in the other novel. One of the most appealing things -- at least to me -- about McGhee's writing is her ability to create such believable, LIKABLE characters. This is not to say that all of them are perfect, that they make no mistakes in their lives -- they are human, after all. The author builds her characters so completely -- and yet so gently -- that we come to know them at depths which allow us to understand WHY they act as they do, to see the good that exists in all of them, making it easier to overlook or forgive their foibles.

RAINLIGHT is a unique look at the way human beings deal with death and loss -- and that should not imply that this is a depressing, maudlin book, for there is much happiness and joy and love contained in these pages. It is rather a caring look at our humanity, at the things that are really important, about how we remember those who have touched our lives and are no longer with us in the flesh -- a story about remembering.

Even though the two novels are connected in setting and some characters, I don't think it's necessary to read one before the other -- but if you enjoy well-written, touching fiction, please read them. If you pass these by, you're missing an incredible experience.