Book Review: The Light Between Oceans

by M.L. Stedman

2.5 stars. I didn't dislike it, buuuut....meh. It's a page turner, so there's that.

I felt like this book tried really hard, but didn't quite get there. I wanted to like the characters, but never quite connected. I think they all started out as very interesting, imperfect people, but they didn't really develop. I mean yes, Isabella has to make a choice in the end, and she makes the right one; but as the reader it was never ever very clear WHY she made that choice. She never convinced me that she understood that she'd done anything wrong. She never convinced me that she forgave Tom. And the end of the book made me feel like they spent their last 30 years together wallowing in emptiness and sorrow.

The whole story is really sad. I like my fair share of sad books, so that's not a strike against it. But it was sad without offering hope or peace. Even though a big theme running through it is about hope, this is where I feel like the books tries and fails because it doesn't provide the feeling of any hope to be had. Instead there's just the sense that everybody loses.

And the writing is sub-par, which made the moral dilemma much less interesting to read about. So the only thing this book really has going for it is an interesting story-line (which falls flat) and a lot of suspense.