In The Wild Light by Jeff Zentner

5 stars

Thanks to NetGalley for the opportunity to read and review this book. It will be released August 10, 2021 by Penguin Random House Canada.

Here's the Goodreads blurb:

"Life in a small Appalachian town is not easy. Cash lost his mother to an opioid addiction and his Papaw is dying slowly from emphysema. Dodging drug dealers and watching out for his best friend, Delaney, is second nature. He’s been spending his summer mowing lawns while she works at Dairy Queen.

But when Delaney manages to secure both of them full rides to an elite prep school in Connecticut, Cash will have to grapple with his need to protect and love Delaney, and his love for the grandparents who saved him and the town he would have to leave behind."

Jeff Zentner is a master storyteller. A magical word weaver whose characters find their way into your heart. His writing is so fine and so lyrical I found myself reading and rereading passages just for the pure pleasure of experiencing them again. I wept in the first 10% of this book. Tears welled up more than once throughout the rest of it. Emotional engagement like this is the gift of brilliant writing. 

Cash Pruitt is the kind of wounded hero it’s easy to love. His best friend is the brilliant Delaney Doyle. They went to school together but became friends after meeting at a Nar‑Anon meeting. Both their mothers were addicts. Both are damaged from this. The trauma is real. The guilt that's carried for being unable to save people is real. In Zentner's book the protagonists go to therapy. We need more examples of how to survive this stuff. I'm so glad this book is here. 

At their new school, the duo become a quartet. Cash meets Alex, a Korean American student, on the rowing team. He is on a scholarship as well. Viviani Xavier is Delaney's wealthy Brazilian room mate. The four friends become inseparable. 

Cash is lucky to have a poetry teacher, Dr Adkins, who 'gets' him. She encourages him to write his own poetry. Cash's moving poems reach into you and make an already brilliant book even better. His poem, Laundry Boys, celebrates his friendship with Alex. 

This is a novel about loss and grief: a sorrow so sharp edged and heavy it threatens to drag a wounded heart deep down under until it forgets to believe in the sun.

This is a novel about love. It’s about love for the environment and animals around us. It's about love for family and friends. It's about old loves, new loves, and discovering a true love that was there all along.

Ultimately this is a book about becoming the best person you can be. Sometimes you need to leave home to figure this out.  

Preorder your copy now.