The Light Through the Leaves: A Novel

4.5 Luminous Stars
“Who could know their future with a person they cared about? And even if they did somehow find out something bad was going to happen with that person, would they give up on them? Let them suffer alone? Love couldn’t be removed like a thorn from a thumb.”What a stunning story! Beautifully written and emotionally charged, ‘The Light Through the Leaves’ is a luminous book about loss, love and forgiveness. This character-driven story lived up to all my expectations from this amazingly talented author.Ellis and Raven’s story is both heartbreaking and incredibly uplifting. The author’s keen eye for the natural world shines though on every page and infuses the story with an appreciation for the natural beauty all around us. While not a light book by any means, the ending is wonderfully satisfying, even though I felt it was just a tiny bit rushed.Ellis suffers an unimaginable loss early in the book which leads her to turn to drugs and alcohol to try and ease her pain. She was trained as a botanist and always felt a strong pull towards nature, camping and wilderness life. Her loss furthers sharpens her edges, and leads her to turn inwards.“Trees can do this amazing thing called Compartmentalization of Decay. When they get an injury, the cells around the wound change and put up a wall that contains the process of decay. Around that wall, a different kind of change in the cells forms another wall. Then a third wall. And a fourth.”The book is told from both Ellis and Raven’s points of view. While Ellis is running from her trauma and her family, Raven is growing up the daughter of a reclusive, paranoid mother in Washington State. She is a brilliant child but her mother has filled her with lies and half-truths to keep her from outsiders. Eventually Raven begins to attend regular school and form deep bonds with her close circle of friends.Eventually the paths of Ellis and Raven abruptly cross. I could not put this book down! The writing reminds me in a way of early Colleen Hoover in its coming of age themes. And in my opinion it definitely fits into a romance genre even though the characters do experience unimaginable grief and loss.”I didn’t discard you. You’ve always been there, at the core of me. But enclosed in a way that let me survive the pain.”The descriptions of plants and wildlife and the beautiful American landscape, particularly of North Florida, resonated with me. This book is almost mystical in its reverence for the natural world. From the gorgeous cover to the unforgettable characters, this book will stay with me for a long, long time.”I want you to know I love you forever and ever. You know that, right? No matter where I am or where you are, I love you.”

Gripping story, strange family
This book had me hooked from about the second page. The author’s ability to engage her reader through a series of events that no one should ever have to face was heart wrenching and made the reader feel the pain. I’ve read other authors who have this ability, which I say is unique to certain authors and this is what I appreciate about good books. Having said this, I truly felt at first this book was worthy of a five star rating. Even though I questioned my rating as the book progressed, I decided in the end the book won five stars on its full merits. But let me divulge some personal thoughts and peeves about the characters.Warning: spoilers ahead.The main character at the beginning of the book is Ellis, an upper middle class mom living what we believe is the upper middle class white version of the American dream. Then by the end of the first chapter her world suddenly implodes around her. The first section of the book tells of her anguish, the failure of her marriage, and her subsequent descent into alcohol and opiate abuse. This should actually resonate with many readers. We (the readers) are not really made aware of what she’s looking for once she leaves her family behind, we just know she’s running from her past and reacting to the people she meets along the way.Next we move a continent away and meet Raven, who we really just assume is the missing Viola from the first chapter. She’s raised by her “mama” (Audrey) in a hippie-esque fashion underwritten by corporate money inherited from her unnamed father. I did think it odd that bills never came due, that she never paid any taxes, or that the author never really explained how Audrey satisfied her financial obligations. I guess they just weren’t central enough to the story. But Raven grows from a seven-year-old to a junior high school then high school girl. Surrounded by other kids but only close to a select handful, all of whom are boys. I thought it strange that Raven seemed to age rapidly, but the Ellis sections always were within just a couple of years of Viola’s disappearance.Inevitably, Raven’s and Ellis’ paths cross. She relocates to Florida upon Audrey’s death and the forces of life (a.k.a. the author’s imagination) pull all the estranged characters together to a fairy tale ending.OK. Earlier I said I decided to keep my five-star rating, and I stand by that decision. However, I could just as easily given the book two stars and would have felt equally comfortable with that rating. Why? The supporting characters, all of which were weakly developed and mere caricatures of real world nuances. Some conservative reviewers criticize how the book’s conservative characters as bigots. Nowhere does the author identify them as such. I believe Mary Carol and Senator Bauhammer were products of their generation. I was reminded of my own mother who voted nothing but Democratic her entire life but who equally destroyed at least one relationship in our family. Why? Because she was as equal a bigot as the elder Bauhammers. The political aisle does not separate bigots from non-bigots.Raven/Viola was another oddity. While she acted like a normal kid and normal teenager for 90% of the book, her pregnancy was so poorly explained I wished the author had just omitted it completely. Then Raven goes from a 16-year-old unwed mother to a rational adult in the matter of a paragraph. Instead of Raven asking how on earth she’s going to give birth and finish 10th grade, she’s hiring a caretaker for her vast 90 acre estate and opting to allow her real mother to raise the newborn baby. What happened?Ellis’s other kids, the twin boys are another wonder. River clearly has a substance abuse problem. He crashes his car, nearly kills Viola, nearly drowns, yet all the reader learns is he lost his driver’s license and goes to two different AA meetings. No kidding. No other consequences? No court date? Even two sentences would have been better than nothing.Jonah went from a two-timing pig to being in love with a man. This alone does not bother me, but the reader is left putting their own conclusion together to explain the transition.But of all the characters I despised, none got under my skin more than Keith, the park ranger. Keith had no background, no goals or dreams. We don’t even know how he went from being a ranger in Ohio to one in Florida. Obviously, he transferred, but we get not one sentence of explanation.Finally, I wanted to re-title the book. I thought “Guys, Cries, and Lies” might better summarize what the book was all about. There are a lot of male characters (though the female characters are far more interesting). There’s a lot of crying. Male or female matters little. Everybody cries. A lot. And the lies. Everyone in this book lies.But through all the crying and lying, through all the weak character development, and through all the dysfunctional family battles, the reader is given what we (almost) least expect. A happy ending where all the wrongs are righted, all the lies are forgiven, and all the hate turns to love. And that is why I gave The Light Through the Leaves five stars. Implausible, but I’m glad it all worked out.

Start to finish, such a feel good read with a great plot. I loved it so much, cannot wait to read more from this writer.

There are some authors, that, for some reason, just sit well with you. Their books might not be perfect, their writing isnt impeccable, but their stories are full of warmth and its characters are just the kind of people you’d want to have in your life.Glendy Vanderah is one of those authors for me. I was in awe after reading Where The Forest Meets the Stars, it was something so different, so fresh, but at the same time the story itself was just beautiful.The Light Between the Leaves is no different. I have to be honest and admit that I was a bit skeptical about it in the beginning. The story that starts with a baby gone missing….it can go in many directions, and not always the good ones. But that didnt happen here. She took a topic that is heavy, heart wrenching and tragic, and made it into a story about family, preservance and love, sprinkled with environmental and spiritual elements. The characters were so amazing and so real, and I honestly enjoyed every second spent with them. Its the kind of book that will make you feel warm and happy, and in it you will find a beautiful message about life and family. Cause family doesnt necessarily need to be the one we’re born with, but it consists of the people we gathered around us through life, that will give us all the love and support we sometimes need.