The Light Through the Leaves by Glendy Vanderah

The Light Through the Leaves by Glendy Vanderah – 464 pages

ARC from Lake Union Publishing for an honest review

Book Blurb:

In a moment of crisis, Ellis Abbey leaves her daughter, Viola, unattended—for just a few minutes. But when she returns, Viola is gone. A breaking point in an already fractured marriage, Viola’s abduction causes Ellis to disappear as well—into grief, guilt, and addiction. Convinced she can only do more harm to her family, Ellis leaves her husband and young sons, burying her desperate ache for her children deeper with every step into the mountain wildernesses she treks alone.

In a remote area of Washington, a young girl named Raven keeps secrets inside, too. She must never speak to outsiders about how her mother makes miracles spring from the earth, or about her father, whose mysterious presence sometimes frightens her. Raven spends her days learning how to use her rare gifts—and more important, how to hide them. With each lesson comes a warning of what dangers lie in the world beyond her isolated haven. But despite her mother’s cautions, Raven finds herself longing for something more.

My Review: 4.5 stars

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The Light Through the Leaves had me hooked from page one and I stayed hooked until the very last page. Somehow, this book was heartbreaking and uplifting all-in-one. Vanderah’s first book, Where the Forest Meets the Stars is still in my TBR pile. I’m so excited that I can once again enjoy her writing in an altogether different story.

One part of the story focuses on Ellis. Her story begins when she gets distracted by her twin boys and accidentally leaves her baby alone. When she turns back, her baby is gone. After spiraling into depression and substance abuse, Ellis leaves her family behind to embark on a soul-searching journey through the wilderness, with no plans to ever return. The other part of the story focuses on Raven, known as Daughter of Raven. Raised by her unstable mother in a remote property in the forest, Raven finds friendship with the boys who live upstream and attempts to find some normalcy in her isolated life.

Something I really appreciated about Vanderah’s writing is that the characters are incredibly multi-faceted so that even if they’re not relatable, or even likeable at most times, they’re believable. As a reader, it’s hard to enjoy a book if you can’t stand or sympathize with a main character, but this feels like an exception. Even if I wouldn’t have made the same choices as Ellis, I still feel like a passenger on her journey rather than an outsider.

The two stories on their own are beautifully written, each tackling themes of loss, love, dependency, loneliness, longing & family in their own rights. The emotional intensity of the stories, especially as they start to converge, is truly remarkable. Similar to Vanderah’s first novel, her knowledge of nature is very impressive and apparent, although I was never bored or bombarded by it.

For such a beautifully written book filled with richly drawn characters and moving journeys, the ending was too neat for me. Everything worked out a bit to perfectly to be believable, especially for a story with so much depth and emotion. Although I’m happy that things ended well, it didn’t fit with the rest of the story. Barring that, this was a phenomenal story that I would recommend to readers of all genres despite the fairytale ending.