A Northern Light

To be honest, A Northern Light was the first young adult historical fiction novel I read (I'm having a lot of firsts in this class, it seems), and I actually quite enjoyed it.

But the novel both disappointed me and exceeded my expectations.

In the back blurb, it says that it takes place in the backdrop of the famous murder of Grace Brown. I thought that it would be like a typical mystery novel (set in the early 1900s), i.e. that Mattie discovers the body and has these letters and the entire novels is about her going on a hunt to find the man who killed Grace. In the words of Sara V., I assumed Mattie would be like a Nancy Drew. But that's not what happened. At all. I liked that it didn't focus completely on the murder because then it would have been like an equation that could be easily solved and I would have ended up bored. Instead Jennifer Donnelly gave us super small snippets of what happened around Grace's death. The novel focuses on what happened with Mattie before going to the Glenwood and meeting Grace. We see Mattie stressing about her future and her father and food and her dreams and her struggles between doing what's right for her versus what her family needs. Usually that stuff would have seemed boring to me, but it wasn't. Donnelly also managed to interweave events around the murder to events that happened in Mattie life before in a way that connected them, which was interested.

Even though I liked having the background, I wish I had more about Grace's death and Grace herself. And it was a little confusing not having a linear timeline, but after a few chapters I managed to figure out the system.

I could relate a lot to Mattie and the balance between my own dreams versus what my family needs/wants. She seemed very real to me, like a real person. And she was a realistic girl from that time period. I could believe her actions. The only times I wanted to throw the book against the wall was any scene with Royal. I hate jerks. Their whole relationship reminded me of Belle and Gaston's relationship in Disney's Beauty and the Beast. Actually, Mattie is a lot like Belle.

Weaver was my favorite character. His relationship with his mother, I thought, was excellent. He was strong and funny and caring and wanted what was best for Mattie. He was smart enough to use language against the people he hates to make them think he is less than he is just so he can teach them a lesson.

The use of words in the novel was fantastic. Words are so, so powerful. We know that, but a lot of people don't. To Mattie, words are her hope. She got into college with them; she found herself in the words left behind by Grace Brown; she tests feminist boundaries with them.

Right now I am in an obsessive phase with quotes, so I'm going to end this long post with one. I think it fits Mattie well.

"The art of living lies in the fine line of letting go and holding on." ~ Henry Ellis