LoveReading4Kids Says
LoveReading4Kids Says
May 2023 Book of the Month
YA Book Prize winner, Sara Barnard, writes fearlessly about some really tricky issues, but always with great emotional honesty and depth.
This extraordinary novel is no exception since it is tackling the issue of suicide and the impact on those left behind. The book opens with an appropriate trigger warning because these are difficult issues to read about. The book also explores the causes of this particular young girl’s death and in doing so we find out just how toxic and damaging fame can be for young women.
Lizzie Beck is the lead singer for a band that rose to dizzying heights of fame at a very young age and the media follow her every move, every relationship, every stint in rehab. The novel does not flinch from showing the misogyny with which young women are treated. But Lizzie is also Beth, a beloved sister and daughter and the agony of the family’s grief and the way it changes everything in their lives is heartbreakingly laid out.
The story is told from the perspective of Emmy, the equally talented younger sister who wanted nothing more than to emulate her big sister, but skilfully uses lots of different media- text messages, articles, interviews, and emails to show a wider view. The story is divided by poignant black pages noting: 1 day gone etc and very, very subtly, more light appears until we see Emmy at 5 years gone living her life in the limelight but having learned so much from having had Beth as sister.
This difficult journey towards finding light in the darkest of times is both truthful and hopeful. This powerful multi-layered and important novel is enthralling, moving and utterly compelling.
Joy Court
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About
Where the Light Goes Synopsis
A heart-wrenching exploration of grief from a masterful writer, set in a landscape corrupted by fame and the scrutiny that comes from living in the shadow of a star.
Lizzie Beck is one quarter of British pop sensation The Jinks, who launched their career via a reality TV talent show and rose straight to fame - and in Lizzie's case, infamy, for her tumultuous relationship with her boyfriend, stints in rehab and candid confessions about her mental health on Instagram.
To Emmy, though, she will always be her older sister, Beth, the person whose footsteps she intends to follow. Except now she can't. Because Beth, Emmy's beloved sister, has died by suicide.
Forced to face a world without the guiding light of her bright, brilliant big sister, Emmy must wrestle with the impact of private grief, public scrutiny and discover who she once was and who she will become, now that Beth is gone.
About This Edition
| ISBN: |
9781529509137 |
| Publication date: |
4th May 2023 |
| Author: |
Sara Barnard |
| Publisher: |
Walker Books Ltd |
| Format: |
Paperback |
| Pagination: |
376 pages |
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Author
About Sara Barnard
Sara Barnard lives in Brighton and does all her best writing on trains. She loves books, book people and book things. She has been writing ever since she was too small to reach the on switch on the family Amstrad computer. She gets her love of words from her dad, who made sure she always had books to read and introduced her to the wonders of secondhand book shops at a young age. Sara is trying to visit every country in Europe, and has managed to reach 13 with her best friend. She has also lived in Canada and worked in India. Sara Barnard is the author of Beautiful Broken Things, A Quiet Kind of Thunder and Goodbye, Perfect
More About Sara Barnard
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Exploring grief in the wake of suicide, the scourge of public scrutiny, and inextinguishable sibling love, this heart-wrenching novel is an honest, authentic masterwork.
Profoundly moving and laced with hope, Sara Barnard’s Where the Light Goes presents a raw and compassionate account of grief and the perils of fame and public scrutiny. Unflinchingly honest, it shines a light what it means to grieve, love and find a way to live after loss.
Lizzie Beck (real name Beth) shot to fame as the most outspoken member of The Jinks, a massively famous girl band that launched on a TV talent show. To online trolls (and plenty of salacious journalists), Lizzie is “troubled’ and “embarrassing”. A “slut” and “attention whore”. To Emmy, Lizzie is the big sister she idolised and loved beyond words. The big sister who died by suicide in her boyfriend’s flat. Now Lizzie’s gone, Emmy is the little sister left with the brutality of grief: “I used to think grief was about absence, but it’s not. It’s so physical. I never thought it would be something I could taste”.
Emmy’s feelings are brilliantly evoked in all their pain and truth — the anger of grief, the self-destructive lashing out at loved ones. The feeling nothing, feeling cold, and feeling guilty you’re still alive. Then there’s the fact that her dad is still on The Jinks’ management team, and the dark cloud over her own future. A talented singer at a top stage school, Emmy now wonders what she’ll do “if I don’t have music in me anymore”. But healing comes in time, through fierce love, and through friends who are fiercely brave in their determination to prevent Emmy from losing herself, no matter how hard she shoves them away.
With Emmy’s pitch-perfect, first-person narrative interspersed with WhatsApp messages, tweets, transcripts of TV shows, and conversations with Emmy’s therapist, the novel blends writing forms to great effect. As a result, Where the Light Goes is also an absolute page- turner, underpinned by the lucid, vital message that, “Not everything goes. Some things stay”. - Joanne Owen
