Customer Reviews

How the Light Gets In

5 star:		(13)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(8)

 

 

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.

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.

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.

If you live in Australia, you owe it to yourself to read some MJ Hyland. She's one of you lot, and she can write like nobody's business.

If you read a review of one of her books in perhaps The Age or The Australian, and then you try to find the book at some place like Amazon in the USA, they don't have it. I hope you have better luck at your local bookstore. Go find out, okay? You'll thank me.

Here's my experience:

Jan read a review of something by MJ Hyland, found it unavailable at Amazon, and slapped it into the Wish List or the Shopping Cart. Later, I was looking at my favorite Chinese book swapping site, found something else by this author, and chose it instead.

The book is awesome, folks. About a teen girl from Sydney (Australia) who found a little reprieve from poverty by joining a student exchange program and going to the USA for a year. Looking at the USA through the eyes of an outsider, even though I look at the same American family she does and wonder "What the bloody f*** are they about?" The money divide I know well. Things about teen "logic" and being a misfit that I'd forgotten. Stuff about girls that is simply outside my experience. And, a whole lot more than what I just babbled on about. A whole lot more.

Dig this. An author begins by creating some mighty realistic characters. Life throws them into a situation. They do what their characters dictate they must do. Everybody true to herself and himself and utterly realistic. And yet, if you wanted to read the first chapter and play "connect the plot dots," you wouldn't arrive at the same point this book does. I love writing like that. Meaning, like this book. I like surprises, I love sharp realism, I adore Aussie irony, and sometimes I even enjoy thinking. It's all here.

I don't care why you read -- I know you'll enjoy reading this. Trust the creaky old non-Aussie madman and find this book.

Fabulous and fulfilling. I was sad when i finished because i felt like i had lost a friend. I've never felt closer to a character in a novel before this. I miss having Lou's voice in my head. I would definately recommend this book.

This is a book that comes from the gut. It directly hits the confusion and beauty of being young. It's the feeling of knowing that there are reasons for living, that there is incredible beauty in the world, but all you can see in others is what you dislike about yourself. The feeling of growing up, knowing that you are a square peg and all you can find right now are the round holes.

The plot is the plot. It is not particularly important, other than providing the protagonist situations to bounce off of. And that it does very well.

In the cover blurbs, the narrator of M. J. Hyland's debut novel, How Light Gets In, is compared to Holden Caulfield. And surely there are some nods to Cather in the Rye but one might also compare it to The Sterile Cuckoo, The Bell Jar, The Moviegoer or any number of books (I would even argue that it shares similar themes to Anne of Green Gables) about one coming of age, awkwardly and with a brain too big for others to handle.

Lou Connor is fascinating and because she is fascinating, the book narrated by her recounting her time as an Australian exchange student living with a host family in a wealthy suburb of Chicago is fascinating. Lou comes from Sydney, where she left behind her alcoholic parents and evil older sisters. She is in America on a full-scholarship exchange. She received the scholarship because of her intelligence--and this intelligence is evident throughout.

More than the plot, though, what is so interesting is the character study of this young woman. One of the first things she tells the reader is what she knows about serial killers--that most of them were treated randomly as children. And then, throughout the rest of the narrative, she shows us how she was treated in a similar way, which may explain why she has a difficult time sleeping and why the touch of others leaves her cold.

She also paints herself the victim in all situations--even those she has brought on herself. And when we might find ourselves tiring of her angst, she pulls through with another facet of herself (such as having a great singing voice) which makes us interested in her again.

Ultimately, we don't know the truth of what happens to Lou. Throughout, her narration is unreliable and then when Lou prods the other exchange student to read the urgent letter from her mother and then tell her what it says, we are left with yet another layer of potentially unreliable narration.

I found this book engrossing in the same way I once blazed through Less than Zero and various and sundry other Bret Easton Ellis books--and that is that while I wanted to spend this time looking into Lou's world, I'm extremely happy that I don't have to live it.

So don't judge this book by its cover and think that you are going to be reading yet another in a line of Holden Caulfield wannbes; Lou Connor is an original and her voice will bewitch you.

How the Light Gets In by M.J. Hyland takes place in a very rich, very quiet Chicago suburb. Lou Connor is an exchange student from Sidney, Australia who lives with the Hardings in this nameless Chicago suburb. When Lou finally arrives in the United States she thinks it will be as laid back as a Sunday afternoon. As school kicks in she mingles with the wrong people and is getting involved with drugs and liquor. After her exchange family finds out about her trouble, they send her away and she is back where she first started; alone.
This book was influential to me because it taught me what to do and what not to do in order to have the life I want. After I was done reading the book I thought, "Wow, that book was deep." This book tells me that even though all people fall into an abyss, you can always come right back out of it. The most important thing I learned while reading this book was that I am not the kind of person Lou Connor was and I never will be because I want a good life. I especially liked this book because it was real and straight forward. It didn't use that many fancy metaphors or figurative language. It just told you the truth.

This novel is DEFINITELY worth reading,rereading and treasuring.
M.J. Hyland's conjured up an intelligently sharp-tongued character. The character,16 year old Lou,is an even pissier and more cynical Holden Caulfield,turned into a girl, morphed with a more edgy,Australian Esther Greenwood.
Her characters are potrayed with no sentiment. Rather than sugar coating them,she's given them skeptisism and painfully dead-on emotions,a humanity that's actually convincing.

I bought it from only looking at the cover(it has a great cover). After reading it,though,it couldn't matter less what it looked like.
It,as far as I'm concerned,has to be read cover-to-cover in one sitting(atleast the first time).

The ending of the book is one of those incredible endings that leave you breathless and linger with you a long time after.

I highly recommend 'How the Light Gets in' to anyone who can read.

I too was allured by the cover of this book as was I excited at the fact that it won the Distinguished New Author award. This book was also intriguing as I found it on a list of books I had enjoyed thoroughly and was under the impression that How the Light Gets In would be in that same line of success. Instead I am left feeling as if Lou was misunderstood but Hyland didn't completely understand her character. When an author leaves you with this feeling it makes for a very unsettling reading experience. I will say that there are vivid portions of this novel that draw you ever closer to Lou and her life. Hyland does evoke humanity through the observations Lou makes that the rest of us take for granted. But sadly as you reach the end of the novel you feel as if there was a great deal learned though there is more to tell; something more to finish up the book. There were earlier plot offshoots that seemed to resolve much better than the overall plot. Even as I write this, I am torn as to recommend or shun people from the book. I enjoyed much of the story but then I am left with the feeling "that was it?" Books are funny in the sense you either love them or you hate them. With this book I really got into parts of it and yet I don't feel as if I read it at all. For a first novel, it is a bold showing.