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A gripping and deftly plotted narrative of family and belonging, Lights All Night Long is a dazzling debut novel from an acclaimed young writer "Lights All Night Long is utterly brilliant and completely captivating. . . . One of the most propulsive, un-put-downable literary novels I've read in ages."--Anthony Marra, author of A Constellation of Vital Phenomena Fifteen-year-old Ilya arrives in Louisiana from his native Russia for what should be the adventure of his life: a year in America as an exchange student. But all is not right in Ilya's world: he's consumed by the fate of his older brother Vladimir, the magnetic rebel to Ilya's dutiful wunderkind, back in their tiny Russian hometown. The two have always been close, spending their days dreaming of escaping to America. But when Ilya was tapped for the exchange, Vladimir disappeared into their town's seedy, drug-plagued underworld. Just before Ilya left, the murders of three young women rocked the town's usual calm, and Vladimir found himself in prison. With the help of Sadie, who has secrets of her own, Ilya embarks on a mission to prove Vladimir's innocence. Piecing together the timeline of the murders and Vladimir's descent into addiction, Ilya discovers the radical lengths to which Vladimir has gone to protect him--a truth he could only have learned by leaving him behind. A rich tale of belonging and the pull of homes both native and adopted, Lights All Night Long is a spellbinding story of the fierce bond between brothers determined to find a way back to each other.
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A plot-driven immersive story of two Russian brothers - one a drug addict, the other a talented student who gets to go to America as an exchange student. It's also a portrait of two places and societies: On one side a bleak Russian former mining town in Siberia, ruled by scarcity, hopelessness and a looming oligarch. And opposing it: the bible belt of America, people defined by their religious beliefs, optimism and in possession of mundane riches that Russians can only dream about.
The plot pulls you along, it's engaging. But, there was also something about the ‘plottiness' that bugged me. The twist was pretty obvious from the start. And all the pieces fitting together in the end felt a bit too forced.