Book #48 |
Book: This Impossible Brightness | Author: Jessica Bryant Klagmann | |
| Source: Free First Reads download Format: Kindle |
Pages: 308 | Duration: 06/20/25 – 06/24/25 (5 days) | |
| Rating: ★★★★☆ | Genres: literary fiction, fantasy, mystery, dystopia, magical realism, science fiction | ||
| 📕10-word summary: Grieving woman develops unlikely connections with — dead and alive — townsfolk. 🖌6-word review: Interesting premise. Ended right on time. |
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| 💭Favorite quote: “It is agonizing, the disposition of the human mind to construct obstacles in one’s own path, when the world itself has given us none.” | |||
| 🎓Some new-to-me words: QL card, rappie pie, hepatica, phonautograph, ogham, mottled, cairn, lupine | |||
| Description:* After the mysterious disappearance of her fiancé, Alma Hughes moves to a remote island in the North Atlantic, where she hopes to weather her grief and nurture her ailing dog. But the strange town of Violette has mysteries as well. Townsfolk say that the radio tower overlooking their town broadcasts messages through their home appliances, their dreams, even the sea itself. When lightning strikes the tower, illuminating the sky in a brilliant flash, Alma finds herself caught in the unexplainable aftermath of one of Violette’s deadliest storms. As the sea consumes the island, threatening its very existence, the deaths and lost memories of the recently departed also devastate the community. Alma, with a unique link to the lost, may be the only one who can help them move on. But to do so, she must confront a tragic loss of her own.*From goodreads.com’s synopsis. | |||
| Thoughts: I acquired this book in January of 2024, and I’m surprised I downloaded it because I dislike 4 of the 6 genres listed for this book: literary fiction, mystery, fantasy, dystopia, magical realism, science fiction. The only thing more surprising than that is that I actually didn’t abandoned it and I liked it pretty well. I did experience, although to a minimal degree, a couple of the things I don’t like about fantasy, magical realism, and science fiction, which is constantly trying to figure out “the rules” of how things work in these unreal worlds, and then making sure the author is true to them. For example, in this book, one of the characters can see and hear dead people (and a dead dog), but only certain dead people, and those dead people can see and hear each other. Also, I’m a stickler for “speaker attribution” (a.k.a. “dialogue tags”), because if they’re not used for a chunk of conversation between people, I think the writing has to be very, very strong to keep the reader from asking, “Wait, which person is saying this?” I experienced this a couple of times in this book. And, finally, I spent too much time wondering why the name of this book was This Impossible Brightness instead of The Impossible Brightness. | |||
See the rest of the books I’ve read in 2025 and previous years: 2024 | 2023 | 2022 | 2021 | 2020 | 2019.