Each Night Was Illuminated

July 15, 2022
A teenage girl longs to believe again, despite her skepticism. Seventeen-year-old Cassie Blake, a high school senior in Green Valley, New Jersey, once wanted to be a nun. But her faith died after her mother left her family and she witnessed a tragic, fatal train crash when she was 11. She was with Elias Jones, an Australian boy in town visiting relatives; afterward he sent letters that she ignored, and their contact ceased. Now Cassie suffers from anxiety and insomnia and has a complicated relationship with religion and God. She dotes on little brother Gabe while feeling alienated from her complacent father and sister. Cassie also feels alone in pushing back against Father James, the local demagogue priest. When Elias returns to the U.S. for college, he invites Cassie on a quest that shakes up her stifling existence. Their worldviews conflict: For Cassie, the world has felt inherently unsafe ever since the accident, while for Elias, it has felt full of magic. Their love blossoms despite challenges ranging from small-town prejudice to devastating climate change events. Cassie's despair, rage, and courage in the face of seeming hopelessness are lyrically chronicled in quiet prose that belies the magnitude of the personal and global crises the teens face. The book follows a White default. Elias has one Bangladeshi grandparent and three who are presumably White; his characterization feels racialized and underdeveloped. A thoughtful read about grappling with faith while learning to take a stand. (Fiction. 13-18)

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August 8, 2022
Cassie Blake always wanted to be a nun, but she struggles with her faith after witnessing a horrific accident, in this spiritual tale. Cassie was 11 when she and visiting friend Elias Jones watched a train crossing the bridge into exurb Green
Valley, N.J., plummet into the reservoir, killing six people. Seven years later, Cassie—still processing the trauma of what she saw—has lost her faith in God, is coping with chronic insomnia, and ignores Elias’s letters from Australia. But suddenly Elias is back in Green Valley for the summer, preparing to attend college. Hoping to reconnect, he invites her to help him look for ghosts; though Cassie agrees, she’s skeptical that his high-tech gear, which includes an infrared sensor to uncover ectoplasm, will bear fruit. When Elias pulls a prank on Cassie’s contentious priest that backfires, and a harrowing incident threatens to upend his future, Cassie must contend with looming disaster, both internal and external. Though the disjointed plot occasionally stalls forward momentum, Anderson (Midnight at the Electric) uses Cassie’s contemplative and resilient voice to detail a true-to-life exploration of one teen’s shifting relationship with faith. Most characters read as white; Elias has a Bangladeshi grandparent. Ages 14–up. Agent: Rosemary Stimola, Stimola Literary Studio.

Starred review from January 27, 2023

Gr 9 Up-Cassie Blake wanted to become a nun when she grew up. This all changes when she and the new boy in her New Jersey town, Elias Jones, watch a horrific accident that changes her entire belief in God. This is three books packed into one. The first part focuses on Cassie's struggle with faith and the conflicting emotions she feels about being the main caregiver for her younger brother, Gabe, after her mother's departure. The second part questions Cassie's relationships with her town and church after Elias, a visitor from Australia, unveils the town's prejudice and racism. Finally, the third section brings even more turmoil when a massive natural disaster comes to town and sweeps away everything. In what will feel relatable to teens today, Cassie's story is a rollercoaster of emotions, change, and facing the real world outside of the comfort of one's hometown. Cassie is white, Elias is described as having brown skin and black hair with a grandmother from Bangladesh. VERDICT A unique story that captures every angle of being a teen in today's world, this is a must-read.-Anna Taylor

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Starred review from September 1, 2022
Grades 9-12 *Starred Review* Cassie is an island unto herself. The middle of three children, she's found herself--or placed herself--in the position of primary caregiver for her beloved younger brother, Gabe, and her fears about his well-being threaten to overwhelm her. At 11, she witnessed a tragic train accident alongside classmate Elias, and since then, though she still wants to be a nun, her faith in God and religion has steadily waned. In her church-centric town, that's a loss of faith that only contributes to her feelings of isolation, and she finds herself more adrift than ever as Elias abruptly comes back into her life their senior year of high school. The train accident the two saw as children took the lives of a family of hotel owners; that hotel, now run-down and abandoned, is scheduled for demolition at the end of the summer, and Elias is determined to find the ghosts of the family that once lived there. What blossoms between Elias and Cassie is a careful, covert nighttime friendship as Cassie, melancholic and apprehensive, holds Elias, her feelings for him, and her own desire to step foot into the world at brittle arm's length. With searing prose, Anderson lays bare Cassie's heart, documenting one girl's growing understanding of the fragility of the world and calculating as she does the equal dangers of living in it and of failing to. Tender and wise.

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