A Certain Slant of Light [Paperback]

Laura Whitcomb (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 21, 2005

In the class of the high school English teacher she has been haunting, Helen feels them: for the first time in 130 years, human eyes are looking at her. They belong to a boy, a boy who has not seemed remarkable until now. And Helen—terrified, but intrigued—is drawn to him. The fact that he is in a body and she is not presents this unlikely couple with their first challenge. But as the lovers struggle to find a way to be together, they begin to discover the secrets of their former lives and of the young people they come to possess.

Editorial Reviews

From School Library Journal

Grade 9 Up–Helen died 130 years ago as a young woman. Unable to enter heaven because of a sense of guilt she carried at death, she has been silent and invisible but conscious and sociable across the generations. Her spirit has been sustained by its attachment to one living human host after another, including a poet and, most recently, a high-school English teacher. While she sits through his class one day, she becomes aware of James and he–unlike the mortals all around them–is aware of her as well. James, who also died years earlier, inhabits the body of a contemporary teen, Billy. James and Helen fall in love, he shows her how to inhabit the body of a person whose spirit has died but who still lives and breathes, and the two begin to unfold the mysteries of their own pasts and those of their adolescent hosts. Jenny, whose body Helen now uses, is the only child of strict religious parents who controlled her beyond what her spirit could endure. Billy's spirit left his body after a string of tragedies resulting from drug abuse and domestic violence. James and Helen court in both modern and old-fashioned ways; here is a novel in which explicit sex is far from gratuitous or formulaic. Whitcomb writes with a grace that befits Helen's more modulated world while depicting contemporary society with sharp insight. In the subgenre of dead-narrator tales, this book shows the engaging possibilities of immortality–complete with a twist at the end that wholly satisfies.–Francisca Goldsmith, Berkeley Public Library, CA
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

Gr. 9-12. In sensuous prose, Helen, who has been dead for 130 years, describes what it's like to live as Light, clinging to a human host, then reentering an empty human body and becoming physically and emotionally attuned to the world. Helen is startled when she realizes that a student in her host's English class can see her. James, too, is Light, but he has taken over the body of Billy, who almost overdosed on drugs. Their joy at finding one another turns quickly to love, and James helps Helen locate an empty body that she can inhabit. Fellow student Jennifer seems the perfect choice, but the unhappiness in her fundamentalist family, as well as the chaos of Billy's household, mix uneasily with the pleasures the spirits are rekindling. Whitcomb writes beautifully, especially when she is describing the physical delights of sexual love and the horror the spirits endure as they fight through their personal hells to reach the other side. Unfortunately, her stereotypical portrayal of a Christian family is so unnuanced that it jars when juxtaposed with the rest of the writing. Still, in many ways this will be irresistible to teens. Watch for more from Whitcomb. Ilene Cooper
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Age Range: 12 and up
  
• Paperback: 282 pages
• Publisher: Graphia; None edition (September 21, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 061858532X
• ISBN-13: 978-0618585328
• Product Dimensions: 5.3 x 0.7 x 8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (255 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #239,669 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Laura Whitcomb grew up in Pasadena, California in a mildly haunted house. She received her English degree at California State University at Northridge in 1993. She has taught Language Arts in California and Hawaii. She has won three Kay Snow Awards and was once runner up in the Bulwer-Lytton writing contest for the best first sentence of the worst Science Fiction novel never written. In her spare time she sings madrigals with the Sherwood Renaissance Singers and is the props mistress for the Portland Christmas Revels. She lives in Wilsonville, Oregon, with her son Robinson.

A Certain Slant of Light has been published in Italian, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Spanish, German, Russian, Bulgarian, Polish, Turkish, and Taiwanese. The audio book is published by Listening Library. In 2005 ACSOL was also chosen for the "Discover Great New Writers" program at Barnes & Noble bookstores.

The Fetch was #5 in the top ten of Children's Indie Next List 2009 and was published as an audio book by Recorded Books. It was also published in Spanish and German.

Under the Light, the long-awaited sequel to A Certain Slant of Light, was published in May 2013. It will also be published in Taiwanese.

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

52 of 56 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Wonderful and much better than I expected!!! April 6, 2007

By J. Anderson

Format:Paperback

I bought this book for my two older daughters to read due to the reviews and the subject matter being similar to other books they have enjoyed. However, I read the book before they did just to see what it was about, and I am so very glad I did! At the end I was just crying, but in such a good way.

I don't consider myself religious, more of an agnostic. Even though the book spoke about heaven, etc., it wasn't in such a way that made it overbearing. It actually questioned certain beliefs more than anything, so I did not think there were any sort of religious overtones in the book that tried to explain life, death, and what comes after in an arrogant, this-is-the-way-it-is-so-do-NOT-ask-questions-or-doubt-it-in-any-way tone.

What it was is an extremely touching, moving book with such a great conclusion. I most definitely did not think there should have been more, it was, as another reviewer called it, beautiful. It is an atypical love story which shows the power of forgiveness, all in a story that teens and adults can relate to.

Really, this is a wonderful book, you just have to read it. I know my children will love it, although since they are not adults, as the characters in the book are, they may not be able to relate to some aspects of the story, like how strong a mother's love is and why you would punish yourself for things you thought you had done wrong.

I hate to think there are people that think this book is only for older teenagers. If your kids are allowed out in the real world at all without earplugs and blinders, the sex, language, and drug references in this book are *not* going to surprise them. Sorry for having to say that, but it isn't cynicism, just unfortunately, reality.

32 of 37 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Perfection; Read in one Sitting! November 18, 2007

By KDMask VINE™ VOICE

Format:Paperback

This is one of my top 5 books of all time. I absolutely loved the story of Helen and her struggle to leave this world peacefully. I had no idea it was a young adult book until I saw the reviews on here! Anyone who enjoys unique, beautiful stories will devour this book. Told from a unique perspective and mingling with the living and dead, I couldn't put it down. The ending was wonderful. I'm buying it as gifts for all my 'bibliophile' friends. Kudos to the cover artist as well.

57 of 70 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Richie's Picks: A CERTAIN SLANT OF LIGHT October 1, 2005

By Richie Partington VINE™ VOICE

Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase

"The pain, once I was dead, was very memorable. I was deep inside the cold, smothering belly of a grave when my first haunting began. I heard her voice in the darkness reading Keats, 'Ode to a Nightingale.' Icy water was burning down my throat, splintering my ribs, and my ears were filled with a sound like a demon howling, but I could hear her voice and reached for her. One desperate hand burst from the flood and caught the hem of her gown. I dragged myself, hand over hand, out of the earth and quaked at her feet, clutching her skirts, weeping muddy tears. All I knew was that I had been tortured in the blackness, and then I had escaped. Perhaps I hadn't reached the brightness of heaven, but at least I was here, in her lamplight, safe."

It was more than 150 years ago when the dead woman's tortured spirit became a "prisoner on leave from the dungeon." Helen can not be seen, nor heard, nor felt, although her emotions can occasionally send "a ripple into the tangible world." During those years, Helen has cleaved to a series of unwitting hosts, learned through trial and error the rules by which she must abide in order to prevent a return to her hell, and has periodically chosen another acceptable and convenient person to haunt (preferably one with some tie to literature, which she so loves) for when her current host grows old and dies.

The latest of Helen's hosts is an English teacher, Mr. Brown, and it is in his classroom that it happens:

"Someone was looking at me, a disturbing sensation if you're dead. I was with my teacher, Mr. Brown.... As usual, we were in our classroom, that safe and wooden-walled box--the windows opening onto the grassy field to the west, the fading flag standing in the chalk dust corner, the television mounted above the bulletin board like a sleeping eye, and Mr. Brown's princely table keeping watch over a regiment of student desks. At that moment I was scribbling invisible comments in the margins of a paper left in Mr. Brown's tray, though my words were never read by the students. Sometimes Mr. Brown quoted me, all the same, while writing his own comments. Perhaps I couldn't tickle the inside of his ear, but I could reach the mysterious curves of his mind.

"Although I could not feel paper between my fingers, smell ink, or taste the tip of a pencil, I could see and hear the world with all the clarity of the Living. They, on the other hand, did not see me as a shadow or a floating vapor. To the Quick, I was empty air. "Or so I thought. As an apathetic girl read aloud from Nicholas Nickleby, as Mr. Brown began to daydream about how he had kept his wife awake the night before, as my spectral pen hovered over a misspelled word, I felt someone watching me. Not even my beloved Mr. Brown could see me with his eyes. I had been dead so long, hovering at the side of my hosts, seeing and hearing the world but never being heard by anyone and never, in all these long years, never being seen by human eyes. I held stone still while the room folded in around me like a closing hand. When I looked up, it was not in fear but in wonder. My vision telescoped so that there was only a small hole in the darkness to see through. And that's where I found it, the face that was turned up to me.

"Like a child playing at hide and seek, I did not move, in case I had been mistaken about being spotted. And childishly I felt both the desire to stay hidden and a thrill of anticipation about being caught. For this face, turned squarely to me, had eyes set directly on mind."

So begins the teenage love story of the year, and a supernatural one at that.

The young man who can see and hear Helen is Billy Blake, a human whose body has been taken over by a ghost named James at the moment its drug-addled teen owner checked out.

The two main difficulties facing Helen and James are:

Can Helen get a body of her own?

What happens when you suddenly become a troubled teenager but are not familiar with those thousands of details about the life you've supposedly been living.

Here this scenario takes on a whole different dimension from THE PRINCE AND THE PAUPER.

Alternating between sensual, gritty, dark, delightful, and frightening; between atmospheric fantasy and down-and dirty contemporary YA realism, A CERTAIN SLANT OF LIGHT is absolutely awash in literary quality and an award winner waiting to happen.

You'll be seeing this one on my Best of 2005 list later this year. Read more ›

14 of 17 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Lyrical and Poetic November 7, 2005

By Floyd Sklaver

Format:Paperback

Laura Whitcomb has written a simply stunning book imbued with phrases as lyrical and poetic as any I've read. The story captured my imagination and the attraction between James and Helen was the perfect combination of adolescent yearning and mature desire. I couldn't put it down and am eager to read what Whitcomb produces next.

11 of 13 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Interesting take on the afterlife for older teens June 16, 2006

By Teacher Reader

Format:Paperback

First of all, let me say that the person who rated it low for his own mistake of not realizing it was a YA book is wrong. You can't down a book for meeting the criteria of its genre. That's your fault. And the person who rated it low as a parent who didn't like the sexuality, understand this: the characters were not teenagers. They were using teenagers as vessels, but they were adults when they died and they'd been "around" for a lot longer than that. That being said, I still think this is for older teens (17+).

There are some interesting books that have come out recently that get people to question what happens to us when we die and how the decisions we make in this life affect that. A Certain Slant of Light does this in a very interesting and somewhat creepy way. If you want something for younger teens, check out Elsewhere.

Imagine punishing yourself for generations because of a mistake you thought you made. Imagine having to attach yourself to human beings to avoid the pain that you think you will endure in hell. Imagine getting close to these humans, only to see them leave you again and again as they LIVE and you do not. Now imagine feeling love but not knowing how to realize that love. If you had another chance at life, would you take it? At any cost? These questions and more are explored in the provocative tale A Certain Slant of Light.