Customer Reviews

Qualities of Light (Spinsters Ink)

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QUALITIES OF LIGHT, by Mary Carroll Moore, isn't just a beautifully nuanced contemporary lesbian romance, but a sensitive exploration of the cruelty and kindness--the intricate balancing act--that is family love. I couldn't recommend it more highly.

It was supposed to be a routine summer at Cloud Lake, but the Fisher family is coming unraveled. When Molly and her little brother Sammy disobeyed their father and took a boat out onto the lake, they had no way of knowing that an accident would leave Sammy lying in a hospital bed in a coma. Their parents' marriage was tenuous at best with their father absorbed in his painting and mother waiting for a chance to take off in her plane and leave them all behind. Instead, her parents are keeping a vigil at the hospital, focusing all of their attention on their son and Molly is left on her own to deal with her guilt, her parents and the strange feelings she's developing for Zoe Novato. Zoe is unlike anyone fifteen year old Molly has ever met - funny, vivacious and not afraid to kiss a girl. Molly's father is distant and her mother distracted, so she has no one to talk to about why she is more attracted to a girl than to Chad who would like to be her boyfriend. As the summer progresses Zoe practices her waterskiing, Chad is confused, and Molly learns to deal with her feelings, both for her parents and Zoe. And they are all waiting, waiting for Sammy to wake up.

Qualities of Light is a sensitive, deftly told story of an adolescent trying to cope with her emotions. Molly's hormones should be raging, but what throws her is that they're drawing her towards a girl and Molly doesn't want to be different from everyone else. She's struggling to reestablish her relationship with her parents, who aren't making it easy, and she doesn't need anything to complicate that more than Sammy's accident already has. Moore shows Molly as a child-woman who alternates between immature behavior and overwhelming maturity as she deals with her family and friends. Those who remember their passage through that age will find much that taps into their memories.

This is a serious, but interesting book. Sometimes it's hard to get a grasp on the emotions that are being expressed, but that may be a device to help the reader relate to what Molly is going through. This isn't a coming-out love story, but a thoughtful look at the process. For those looking for a book with some depth, this may be it.

Qualities of Light is the story of sixteen-year-old Molly, whose brother is in a coma and whose parents appear to be on the point of separating. One glorious summer in the Adirondacks, Molly learns how to love -- herself, her father, her friends ... and Zoe, beautiful, vibrant Zoe.

Mary Carroll Moore's first novel, nominated for the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction, is carefully and lovingly put together. Her characters are rich and fully developed, her descriptions of the setting are detailed and visual and put the reader right there, on the dock with Molly and Zoe, and she captures the extremes of the teenage years perfectly. My favorite scene focuses on a simple fern; my second favorite is the closing scene between Molly and her father. I strongly recommend this book to teens and adults alike.

I gobbled down your book. It was delightful and probably I'll have to read it again slowly. And what a transcendent ending! I read some aloud to my husband and he too commented on how you put him right there in the place and time through your descriptions. Thank you!

This is beautiful, finely crafted novel filled with sensitive character portrayals.
Moore brings the reader into the heart of Molly, the main character, and the adolescent drama of first love. The tension intensifies as family dynamics unravel after an accident involving Molly and her brother, Sam. Moore writes beautifully about the Adirondacks and about painting, and creates characters we care about. This is a book that you don't want to end, a book with a deep message about the ties that bind us that will satisfy both YA and adult audiences.

I love the way all my senses and intuition were engaged in the book. As a parent, it helped me remember the angst and wisdom of adolescence, as a city dweller it gave me the textures of summer at the lake, and as an artist, this novel let me live with an artist, Molly's Dad, and see from the other side.
I trusted the edginess of this book as I followed threads of sounds, objects, smells, atmosphere, truth and perception, oblique light and rich shadow.
Is there anything more wonderful than a novel that reveals deep relevant life and the intensity of newly discovered love?
I am ready to read Moore!

Though this is a coming-of-age story about a teen who arrives at a dramatic and ecstatic realization about a love she's never experienced, it's also a beautifully crafted submersion into the "lights and darks" of family subterfuge, unconscious desires, guilt and knowing. In simple, direct and poignant language, the author manages to navigate the instability and subtlety of family alliances and betrayals, and the delicate nuances of a burgeoning same-sex relationship. The characters continued to stay in my memory after finishing this wonderful debut novel. I recommend this book to anyone who's loved, discovered a love they never knew existed, or experienced the ups and downs of family relationships which reflect the light and dark around and inside them. I can only look foward to Mary Carroll Moore's next novels.

This is a wonderfully sensitive portrayal of first love. The author successfully layers Molly Fisher's many struggles---guilt surrounding her brother's accident, frustration that she and her father don't understand each other, and confusion over where she fits in a group of lake friends.

Shining through these layers are Molly's vivid voice and her deepening love for a young woman named Zoe. I found this to be a skillfully crafted novel that both moved and entertained me as I followed Molly's summer journey.

I couldn't put the book down. Mary's exquisite use of language to create visual imagery holds its own with the best writers I have read. The story is compassionate and sweet without cloying--a realistic story of first love that transcends gender lines, woven together with family tragedy and healing. I was utterly transfixed by Molly's dance with the jackrabbit on the lakeshore. The language and imagery is sublime!

Months after I read this book, I keep thinking about the characters, their actions and the setting.

When a family suffers a shared personal calamity, as mine has, they tend to scurry into their own little lives and Ms. Moore's ability to describe how families work is transformational.

Ms. Moore's talent to show how people grow despite anything is inspiring. There are rumors of a sequel, keep tuned.

Reviewer's note: I have been a writing student of Mary Carroll Moore and she has helped so many people get their book finished! She also has written a great instructional book that is more of a system than just a workbook. Please check out Your Book Starts Here: Create, Craft, and Sell Your First Novel, Memoir, or Nonfiction Book by Mary Carroll Moore.