My attempt at the 2009 100+ Reading Challenge starts here.
Fate has brought you to this sketchbook - a slice of life behind the eyes of a seventeen-year-old Filipina residing in sunny England.
Title: A Certain Slant of Light
Author: Laura Whitcomb
Rating: 5/5
Book 2 of 100: (The 100+ Reading Challenge)
In the class of the high school English teacher she has been haunting, Helen feels them: for the first time in 130 years, human eyes are looking at her. They belong to a boy, a boy who has not seemed remarkable until now. And Helen, terrified but intrigued, is drawn to him. The fact that he is in a body and she is not presents this unlikely couple with their first challenge. But as the lovers struggle to find a way to be together, they begin to discover the secrets of their former lives and of the young people they come to possess.
If books were soulmates, A Certain Slant of Light has to be my perfect match.
In January of this year, I was browsing Teenreads.com when I chanced upon a description of this book. It intrigued me the first time. Have I mentioned that I’m into the paranormal genre? It didn’t occur to me the next day I went to the library that this title would be waiting for me. I was really surprised when I saw its spine - I wasn’t searching for the book but there it was, smiling cunningly at me on one of the shelves.
I have to say that Laura Whitcomb is one of the most imaginative authors out there - this story is just enchanting. It convinced me that when you die, all hope is not lost when it comes to finding true love. Helen, a ghost who is forever in her twenties and has been stranded here on earth for more than a hundred years, couldn’t believe what she saw - a human being was staring at her. It must feel weird for the living to know there’s a spirit of some sort haunting them, but it must feel weirder still if it was the other way around.
Helen is Light. James is like Helen, too - he’s a ghost. But what makes him different from her is that he inhabits a human body, Billy’s, making him one of the Quick. As they fall for one another, they realize that the only way that they can truly be together is for Helen to abandon her host and also to be a parasite to another body. This is when Helen and Jenny, a living teenager, become one. Jenny’s soul, however, leaves her own body at will - allowing Helen to sink into Jenny’s skin as if it were her own.
Initially, I found this part hilarious: when Helen finally wears her new body, the first thing she does is make love to James. It did make me jump at first, considering this is a teenage book, hence, I wasn’t expecting to read any intimate sexual references. But the way it was written gave it justice - it was really beautiful.
Whitcomb also put in as much of literature into this book. For instance, she gave Billy the full name of William Blake, the writer. I didn’t spot it immediately but I thought it sounded familiar. In addition, she also referred to Jane Austen’s works quite a few times. When given the opportunity to talk about library books, Helen said:
They line the walls like a thousand leather doorways to be opened into worlds unknown.
Genius, innit? :]
This is one of those books which enlighten readers not just about life and death, but also of divinity. I wouldn’t mind telling my great great grandchildren about this book. Banishment from heaven may be a bad thing, but it wouldn’t really be so if it meant meeting a little soul on earth called James.
