How the Light Gets In [Paperback]

M. J. Hyland (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 11, 2004

Lou Connor, a gifted but unhappy sixteen-year-old, is desperate to escape her life of poverty in Sydney, Australia. When she is offered a place as an exchange student at a college in Illinois, it seems as if her dreams are going to be fulfilled. Her host family, the Hardings, has a large and beautiful house in Illinois and couldn't be more welcoming. Everything is perfect. Until Lou starts having to live in the suffocating and repressed atmosphere of the Hardings' suburban mansion and things start to go terribly wrong. How the Light Gets In is an acutely observed tale of adolescence. But more than that, it is an intelligent and darkly humorous study of human aspiration, self-sabotage, and the dislocation and alienation felt by an outsider. In Lou Connor, M. J. Hyland has created a complex and unforgettable protagonist who mesmerizes the reader with her vivacity and vulnerability, from hopeful beginning to unexpected, haunting end.

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

Sixteen-year-old Australian exchange student Louise (Lou) is ecstatic that she has left behind her rough family, who mock her for using big words, and their tiny flat choked with cigarette smoke. Placed in a wealthy Chicago suburb, in a pristine McMansion with the Harding family, Lou is stunned by the glossy perfection: "There are so many healthy, good-looking teenagers that a few crooked teeth, or short, fat fingers, suddenly take on the proportions of deformities." The Hardings are earnest and warm, but Lou's high-strung insecurity and wary independence begin to widen the cracks in her host family's strained domesticity, particularly when Lou turns increasingly to booze and drugs. Hyland's debut loses momentum as it drifts to its open ending. But Lou's furious, first-person voice is filled with piercing observations that beautifully balance Lou's teenage detachment and aching, intelligence and self-absorption, yearning and recklessness. And like Holden Caulfield, with whom she invites inevitable comparison, Lou is unmerciful toward those satisfied with easy answers: "What kind of a moron thinks there's a rational explanation for human behavior?" Gillian Engberg
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Review

... brilliantly captures the intensity of a child on the brink of adulthood . . . simultaneously incorporates bleak humor and deep emotion. -- Sydney Sunday Telegraph

An estimable debut: Hyland has adeptly caught the tones of adolescent pride, paranoia and vulnerability. -- The Age (Melbourne)

M.J. Hyland's writing is impressively stylish and evocative . . . her narrative is like a sequence of dazzling flares. -- Big Issue (Australia)

That Hyland is a talented writer is clear . . her portrayal of teenage self-delusion and suffering has no real competition. -- Australian Book review

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 12 and up
  
• Paperback: 320 pages
• Publisher: Canongate U.S. (May 11, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1841955485
• ISBN-13: 978-1841955483
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.6 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (35 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,077,462 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

18 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great Read!, April 10, 2005

By 

Katrina Denza "KatDenza" (NC, USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: How the Light Gets In (Paperback)

In M.J. Hyland's debut novel, "How The Light Gets In," sixteen year old Lou Connor comes to America as an exchange student hoping to trade in her shame-invoking family and poverty for the American Dream. She's placed in the home of the Hardings, a seemingly nice family on the surface, but who harbor dysfunctions of their own. Lou is precocious, intelligent, socially awkward and need of alcohol to loosen her up. The harder she tries to fit in with the Hardings, the more she messes up. What she craves more than anything, to live in an ordinary home, where the sheets are clean and she is loved, eludes her.

I loved the book. Full of over-the-top images, humor, and wisdom it engaged me throughout. I'm not sure how I feel about the ending. I could argue for it and I could argue against it. But I wouldn't argue about reading this novel a second time.

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars excellent, May 17, 2005

By 

miss el train "miss el train" (USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: How the Light Gets In (Paperback)

I was extremely impressed with Hyland's first novel, How The Light Gets In. It explores perceptions and society's expectations of behavior and gives an honest look at intelligence.

I'm extremely disappointed, however, in some of the reviews I've read of the book, claiming that Lou is a whiny, idiotic, flaky brat. On the contrary, she is an amazingly intelligent character who is only trying to figure herself out. Some say that Hyland paralelled Caulfield too greatly, but I personally don't see any paralells. What I see is a girl who's intelligence makes her rise above society's expectations and ask why we go by a prescribed script of dialouge instead of being honest about our feelings and experiences.

I especially enjoyed Lou's search for love and normalcy apart from her dreary, poverty-filled life in Sydney, and her failure to realise that money doesn't buy happiness. For a great deal of my life, I thought that if I only had a lot of money, all of my problems would be solved. Now that I'm older and wiser, I realise that unhappiness comes in all classes, races, and religions.

Lou's almost childlike look on the world, counteracted by her incredible intelligence, makes this book a true gem. I'd reccommend it to anyone.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars One of the better new books I read in 2004, January 28, 2005

By 

Kenneth Kiernan (Chicago, IL United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: How the Light Gets In (Paperback)

All in all, a pretty impressive debut. Hyland's Lou is compelling: intelligent and observant, but impetuous. While other reviewers have claimed that the ending lacks resolution, I found that aspect particularly evocative: life often lacks resolution. I'm interested in seeing what Hyland does next.