The Light Pirate by Lily Brooks-Dalton

Set in the near future, this hopeful story of survival and resilience follows Wanda--a luminous child born out of a devastating hurricane--as she navigates a rapidly changing world: A "symphony of beauty and heartbreak" (Associated Press). A Good Morning America Book Club pick · #1 Indie Next pick · LibraryReads pick · Book of the Month Club selection · Marie Claire #ReadWithMC book club selection · 2022 NPR "Book We Love" · New York Times Editors' Choice Florida is slipping away. As devastating weather patterns and rising sea levels wreak gradual havoc on the state's infrastructure, a powerful hurricane approaches a small town on the southeastern coast. Kirby Lowe, an electrical line worker, his pregnant wife, Frida, and their two sons, Flip and Lucas, prepare for the worst. When the boys go missing just before the hurricane hits, Kirby heads out into the high winds in search of his children. Left alone, Frida goes into premature labor and gives birth to an unusual child, Wanda, whom she names after the catastrophic storm that ushers her into a society closer to collapse than ever before. As Florida continues to unravel, Wanda grows. Moving from childhood to adulthood, adapting not only to the changing landscape, but also to the people who stayed behind in a place abandoned by civilization, Wanda loses family, gains community, and ultimately, seeks adventure, love, and purpose in a place remade by nature. Told in four parts--power, water, light, and time--The Light Pirate mirrors the rhythms of the elements and the sometimes quick, sometimes slow dissolution of the world as we know it. It is a meditation on the changes we would rather not see, the future we would rather not greet, and a call back to the beauty and violence of an untamable wilderness. Includes a Reading Group Guide.

TL;DR: If you loved Station Eleven, I think you'll love The Light Pirate. And that's just about the highest praise I can give.

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Any time a publisher tries to compare a book to Emily St. John Mandel's Station Eleven, arguably my favorite novel of all time, I'm going to be skeptical. Lucky for me (and readers everywhere), on rare occasion my natural cynicism proves not just unwarranted but spectacularly, joyfully, scream-it-from-the-rooftops wrong. That was the case here. The Light Pirate by Lily Brooks-Dalton is magnificent.

Fair warning: it is also devastating, on many levels, at many moments. You get attached, and then in an instant - gone. That said, just like in Station Eleven, “post-apocalypic joy” does exist, and it's especially stunning for being heartbreakingly hard-won. (Here, though, it's post-climate destruction, not a global pandemic.)

The writing is beautiful and almost painfully vivid. So many passages struck me, I wound up with pages upon pages of highlights. I won't quote anything in full yet as I know it's an uncorrected proof, but I will say that Lily Brooks-Dalton's metaphors are exquisite.

Speculative fiction is one of my favorite genres. This is one of the most stunning examples of it I've read since, well, Station Eleven. It reminds me of an excerpt of a Dobyns poem I love: “This is where we are in history - to think / the table will remain full; to think the forest will / remain where we have pushed it; to think our bubble of / good fortune will save us from the night”. This is one of those books that I wish everyone would read, not only because it's exceptional (which it is) but because it's critical. To paraphrase Brooks-Dalton, we all know that what we're doing to our world isn't sustainable - but we've hung our hats on the question of proximity, betting that we'll squeak through a closing drawbridge, that the worst won't come until we're gone. The Light Pirate - out later this year - calls our bluff.

Thanks to NetGalley and Grand Central Publishing for an ARC in exchange for my honest review.

Choosing to read this book while vacationing in Florida was perhaps not the wisest decision, but I guess it did give me a certain level of appreciation that I might not have had otherwise...

Set sometime in a not-so-distant future in an ever-shrinking Florida, Wanda is born in the midst of a terrible storm. The story sees this extraordinary child through to adulthood. In her lifetime she's privy to constant changes in her family and climate. Even when things reach total disaster, she's reluctant to leave her home.

I loved the writing. It was atmospheric and created vivid imagery. What lacked for me was the characterization. I didn't connect to anyone which kept me from getting fully immersed into the story. A ‘me' issue, I'm sure. I did like it, I just didn't latch onto it.