How The Light Gets In is the sequel to Joyce Maynard's previous book Count The Ways, altough this book can be read as a standalone novel. Both books are about main character Eleanor, whose husband Cam recently passed away. Eleanor has a lot of care for her son Toby, who suffered from brain damage to to an accident in his youth. She moved back from Brookline to the farm in New Hampshire where she can fully take care of Toby, who takes care of the goats. Toby’s older brother, Al, is married and living in Seattle with his wife . Eleanor's daughter Ursula, lives in Vermont with her husband and two children. Ursula is acting distant to her mother, which is sad for Eleanor, because she doesn't know why. The story follow Eleanor during fifteen years between 2010 and 2024, the daily life struggles and the bigger ups and downs, for example when Toby is falsely accused of something in the local community and when he gets seriously ill and her new relationship with Guy and actual events that happen in America and the world, like the recent Covid Pandemic and the storming of te Capitol, the troubles with Ursula and her husband Jake who becomes and alcoholic, and a tragic event between Toby and neighbour Raine, which results in an incident involving Raine's son Spyder.
There is a lot happening in this book. So much that sometimes you wonder if there was a little less happening in it, it would be a faster and stronger story. Because this is quite a long read, and I questioned if some passages of the story truly added to the story. It doesn't have a real strong storyline, it is more character based and the things that happen on a daily basis, altough the characters, especially Toby, make some progress. It was very realistic, and I truly think Eleanor is a very likeable character, but the story was far too long to keep you interested as a reader, a long story is nice with a more thrilling and exciting plot, but if the story is so character based like this one, this doesn't work out very well. In the end there whas a bit more action in the story, but it misses that action in the rest of the book. I have read a few other books by Joyce Maynard in the past, but this not her strongest work and I truly wanted to like it more than I actually did.
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