A boat washes up on the shore of a remote lighthouse keeper’s island. It holds a dead man – and a crying baby. The only two islanders, Tom and his wife Izzy, are about to make a devastating decision.
They break the rules and follow their hearts. What happens next will break yours.
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What does TWG think?
If I were to describe this novel in laymen’s terms, I would say that it’s about a young girl who has an infatuation on a man who is nearly ten years her senior, and one who works on lighthouses on a secluded island, on his own, for a living. The young girl and the man build a life together which ends up breaking their hearts as well as the heart of someone they don’t even know exists…yet.
I will be extremely careful as to not spoil this book for anyone, so please forgive me if anything I say comes across like I am speaking in riddles!
I was blown away by the simplicity of the story in regards to Tom and Izzy’s relationship and where they built their life together, and I found the shell of the novel to be incredibly magnetic. Some may say that the novel was addictive, charming….words like that, and I would agree because it was. I couldn’t put it down, even though I knew in my heart of hearts that the storyline was going to end in a certain way. I saw it coming. The storyline gave hints that it was going to end in that way, however I had all my fingers crossed because I just wished it wouldn’t. Or did I?
I spoke about the shell of the story and how much I was drawn to that in particular. Now if I delve into the nitty gritty details, I had several dislikes. One of them being Izzy. Her immaturity really annoyed me. She never seemed to grow up, nor did she ever want to take ownership of her actions. I understand that things had happened to her which had made her view life differently, however, I felt as though she didn’t do herself any favours at all.
My second dislike was Tom’s ignorance. His job was to report anything that was wrong, right, or indifferent. He chose not to do that and wondered why things came crumbling down around him. Now I know that his relationship with Izzy was more important than his job, that said, I felt that it was quite selfish of Izzy to put Tom in the situation that she did. Also, if Tom felt so wrong about it, why didn’t he just go with his gut anyway? There were times where he couldn’t see further than his nose and it was a shame as, later in the story, his personality seemed to settle and I felt like I was seeing the real Tom. Too little too late perhaps.
For me personally, those dislikes weren’t make or break ones, because after all, it made the characters who they were, and the author clearly did a good job in creating them otherwise I wouldn’t have spent most of this review talking about two fictional people…but whatever!
It takes a lot to make me cry, however ‘The Light Between Oceans’ had me curled up in a ball sobbing my heart out because of what could have been and what was lost. This, in my eyes, was a life affirming, haunting, and tragically beautiful read.
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