In The Light We Lost by Jill Santopolo, Lucy is torn between two different loves of her life: Gabe, the reckless photographer, and Darren, the steady man. Her struggle to decide where she should lay her path teaches her more about herself than she expected. This is The Light We Lost review.
“The thing about roads is sometimes you happen upon them again. Sometimes you get another chance to travel down the same path.”
― Jill Santopolo, The Light We Lost
Book Title: The Light We Lost
Author: Jill Santopolo
Publication Date: 2017
Genres: Adult Fiction, Love and Romance
Goodreads Rating: 3.98 Stars
My Rating: 4 Stars
He was the first person to inspire her, to move her, to truly understand her. Was he meant to be the last?
Lucy is faced with a life-altering choice. But before she can make her decision, she must start her story—their story—at the very beginning.
Lucy and Gabe meet as seniors at Columbia University on a day that changes both of their lives forever. Together, they decide they want their lives to mean something, to matter. When they meet again a year later, it seems fated—perhaps they’ll find life’s meaning in each other. But then Gabe becomes a photojournalist assigned to the Middle East and Lucy pursues a career in New York. What follows is a thirteen-year journey of dreams, desires, jealousies, betrayals, and, ultimately, of love. Was it fate that brought them together? Is it choice that has kept them away? Their journey takes Lucy and Gabe continents apart, but never out of each other’s hearts.
1. I’ve written this post four times already. At first, I wasn’t going to do a review. This book seemed too monumental… that’s not to say that it is the greatest book I’ve ever read ever, but it gave me pause and made me think about love and the decisions we make in our life. And, honestly, it’s hard to put that all into words in this format. But I’ll try.
2. Oh, Lucy. Lucy’s character is flawed. I’ll admit that I had a hard time truly connecting to her and her struggles because the answer seemed so obvious to me. Sure, Gabe was the shooting star, blazing through her life and giving her so much joy and love. But then he left. (That’s not a spoiler… she hints at it from page one). And she just couldn’t let go. I couldn’t understand why she couldn’t let him go.
3. Love is fire. One of my favorite metaphors in the book is the comparison of love to fire. Some loves are wildfires — all-consuming, comes on without warning, leaves destruction in its path. And while that love may be great, it’s never a love that I’ve craved. The love I most craved (and I think Lucy also craved, whether she admits it or not) is the hearth fire. Comforting, stable, dependable. And I struggled identifying with Lucy at first, because she kept turning back to Gabe and his wildfire, no matter how wonderful her life was. And I just didn’t get it.
4. Until I did. It wasn’t until the last third of the book that I really understood Lucy. I understood her struggle. It wasn’t just about the love — it was also about the “what-could-have-been”, and that IS something I connected to. I love my husband, and I often marvel at the fact that we ended up finding each other, but with every big life decision comes a cost. And as much as Lucy scrambles to figure out her heart, she is also battling the “what ifs”.
“Sometimes we make decisions that seem right at the time, but later, looking back, were clearly a mistake. Some decisions are right even in hindsight.”
This novel is out of the norm for me — I don’t usually read love stories, and it took me half of the book to realize this wasn’t just a love story. It was Lucy’s letter to herself, analyzing her decisions and hoping she made the right ones in the face of the odds she was facing.
This romance caught my heart on fire and made me truly struggle along with the characters. Get your tissues ready for this one.
“A tear rolled down my cheek. If you died, I realized just then, it would mean that I’d be the keeper of our memories. I’d be the only one on Earth who had experienced them.”
“I hope you find a love like that–one that is all-consuming and powerful that makes you feel like you’re going slightly mad. And if you do find that love, embrace it. Hold onto it. When you give yourself over to love like that, your heart will get bruised. It will get battered. But you will also feel invincible and infinite.”
“There is an element of peace in believing that we’re only players on a stage, acting out stories directed by someone else.”
“What I wanted to tell you is that there are lots of ways to love people and I know that you’ll love someone else again. Even if it’s not the same, some of it might be better.”
“I often think about how throughout life, we acquire people. More like People, with a capital P. The ones we go to in an emergency—the ones we know we can count on. If we’re lucky, our parents are our first People. Then our siblings. A childhood best friend. A spouse.”
“Love does that. It makes you feel infinite and invincible, like the whole world is open to you, anything is achievable, and each day will be filled with wonder.”
“There are people we come across during our lives who, after they drift out of our worlds, drift out for good. Even if we see them again, it’s a quick, meaningless hi and how are you? There are other people, though, with whom things pick up right where the relationship left off, whenever we run into them. The level of comfort—it feels like no time has passed.”
“…that some relationships feel like wildfire–they’re powerful and compelling and majestic and dangerous and have the capability to burn you before you even realize you’re being consumed.”
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