Customer Reviews

A Certain Slant of Light

5 star:		(131)
4 star:		(41)
3 star:		(13)
2 star:		(11)
1 star:		(7)

 

 

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.

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.

"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.

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.

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.

Ghost story. What comes to mind? Hauntings? Possessions? Some crazy death and they're a ghost? Yes, naturally. But Laura Whitcomb puts a crazy new twist into the meaning of ghost. In "A Certain Slant Of Light", you're probably thinking: What is that? But in fact it is probably one of the best breakthroughs of the supernatural ever.

Helen is a ghost. And in order to keep from returning to her icy death, she must have a host. Not like a host to possess, but a host to merely cling to and follow. But after 130 years of doing this, something is wrong in her newest hosts class one day. She's being watched. Human eyes can see her. James is a ghost too. But he has come to possess an empty body, a body that the soul has left but it still lives. In this amazing novel you will not be able to put down, you read about the love between Helen and James and how they begin to learn about their past and about the teenagers they possess.

In my opinion, this is an amazing book. I was on a camping trip and I still couldn't put this book down. It's just a completely different perspective of ghosts. Laura Whitcomb has an amazing imagination and way of writing. This book has an age rating of 14 and up. That is the age I would suggest as well for a couple of reasons.

One: The language in this book does in fact go so far as the big "F" bomb, as I would say. Now, hopefully you are mature enough to read the book without problems. Maybe the language isn't appropriate, but the book isn't intending for very young readers. Maybe even the language can add to the story, because it helped me realize the status of the situations. It didn't bother very much.

Two: The sexual content in explicit. Once again hopefully you are mature enough to read this for it not to bother you. The descriptions in these scenes are in depth and I would not recommend it to be read if you can't handle that. Yes, it can be inappropriate, but it is a love story as well. It happens.

So my overall ration is 10 out of 10 because of the uniqueness of the book. You will not come across a book like this ever. It puts a whole new genre and meaning in the subject of ghost story...

M.N.W.

Laura Whitcomb writes a superb story featuring the idea of Heaven and Hell mixed with a wonderful ghost story to emphasize the wonderment of an afterlife. I received this as a gift and could not put it down for a second!

"A Certain Slant of Light" follows the story of Helen Lamb who relives her own Hell after each host dies and moves on to an "afterlife." Being a ghost, she has attached herself to one man, Mr. Brown, since he was seventeen years old. Later in his life, where he's now a teacher at a high school, Helen wonders the halls and his classroom thriving on literature. Soon enough, Helen notices a boy staring right at her. Eventually, the two confirm that they see each other and the story begins to develop in earnest. The boy, James, has inhabited the body of a teenager whose soul has disappeared. Now, James is keen on finding a body for Helen to inhabit so the two may be together. This intense story gains momentum the moment the reader discovers the two widely different lifestyles the teenagers: one being radically religious, the other coming from a "rough" life and neighborhood.

Curiosity will urge on the most reluctant of readers in this book. Whitcomb has done a magnificent job of making this book suspenseful, adventurous, romantic, and mysterious. The struggle to discover what these two ghosts did wrong in their past life will captivate the audience and the startling outcome will bring tears to the eyes. It's a wonderful read that isn't easy to put down until it's completely finished. I would definitely recommend this book the young adults!

Helen's ghost has haunted different "hosts" for well over 150 years. Since she loves to read, she is especially attracted to the poetic or literary types --- at this moment in time she is haunting Mr. Brown, a high school English teacher who aspires one day to become a writer. She lingers as near as possible, reading over his shoulder, giving him gentle hints with his writing and enjoying his classroom life. Sometimes she grows a little jealous of his other life --- the one he has with his new wife. Sometimes she grows weary that she never seems to pass on as other spirits have done. Helen is herself haunted. A deep grieving guilt holds her:

I couldn't remember my sin, but I knew it was deep. My banishment from heaven was proof of it.

There is a quiet sameness in her life, but all of this changes one day when she realizes that someone can actually see her. Billy, one of Mr. Brown's students, looks right at her. She is both frightened and thrilled. It turns out that the body of Billy has become the host for the ghost of a man named James. In Helen's world, spirits are known as Lights and living beings are Quicks. Thus an astounding journey of four lost souls begins: Billy, Jenny, James and Helen.

The Quick:
Billy --- Drugged out most of the time and trying never to think of the horrible night his drunken father attacked his mother, teenage Billy has lost hope. His emptiness drives him to attempt suicide, and it is then that he becomes the "host" for a young man killed during World War I.

Jenny --- Her parents keep her under strict supervision. Her father rules over her and her mother through his fanatically desperate religion. Jenny has given up trying to read anything other than her bible. She is empty and eventually becomes the "host" for Helen.

The Light:
James --- A soldier during World War I, James sees his friend killed. He has no time to recover from this shock and horror before he is shot. The pain and guilt of those last moments have kept him from moving on in the spirit world. Now he has found Billy and through Billy has found Helen.

Helen --- Only pieces of her life drift back to her from so long ago. She feels a fear of water and remembers something about a dear child. When James finds her and begins to fall in love, he helps her move into the body of Jenny. Now she must fight for Jenny, for James, for a lost child, and for herself...

The relationship between Helen and James is romantic and intense. As they explore who they are in their physical forms, they bring new dimensions to their living hosts, Billy and Jenny. Discovering their pasts, confronting their fears and accepting their fates, they all learn from each other. From the depths of four desperate beings love binds them and eventually releases them to their freedoms.

With some of its complex themes and sexual tensions, A CERTAIN SLANT OF LIGHT is definitely better-suited for high schoolers and adults. Laura Whitcomb has told an intriguing and highly imaginative story. From its beautifully rendered cover art to its sweeping end, this is a book that will haunt you long after you close the final page.

--- Reviewed by Sally M. Tibbetts

This book was a gift from my boyfriend who had recalled that I had commented on the 'interesting title' when we were leaving a book store the day before. The title was not a red herring in the least as the entire book was increadably amazing. The characters are wonderfully crafted, the guilt and love of those characters are exposed in a highly entertaining fashion which does not allow you to simply put the book down at the end of a chapter and sleep... this is a book to be read from cover to cover... and then re-read.

One of the most riveting and poetic pieces I have ever read and that this is her first novel amazes me. Very well written, heart rendering plot. Defintely on my favorite list.