We Are the Light is everything a Matthew Quick novel should be. It deals with a heavy topic through the lens of a flawed character who doesn’t necessarily have a very firm grasp on reality.

Lucas recently lost his wife in a mass shooting and spends a lot of the novel in denial of his grief. It doesn’t help that his therapy sessions abruptly ended because Karl, his Jungian analyst, also lost his wife in the tragedy. Lucas tries to maintain a connection with Karl by sending him letters, even though the police have warned him to stay away from Karl’s home. There are 18 letters – one for each victim in the shooting.

This is a moving story about a community coming together to heal from a tragedy. The last chapter, the final and longest letter from Lucas to Karl, is both heartbreaking and hopeful.

Thank you Avid Reader Press and NetGalley for the DRC.

I am a HUGE FAN of Matthew Quick’s books. I gave five stars to The Reason You’re Alive, which remains of my top reads of all time. Matthew has a way of writing characters who are empathetic and you as the reader, find yourself getting emotional over the interactions between the characters.

When I saw We Are The Light was coming out, I knew I had to get my hands on it! I read it in record time, so eager to dive into the author’s latest.

Here’s what you need to know:

Lucas Goodgame lives in Majestic, Pennsylvania, a quaint suburb that has been torn apart by a recent tragedy. Everyone in Majestic sees Lucas as a hero—everyone, that is, except Lucas himself. Insisting that his deceased wife, Darcy, visits him every night in the form of an angel, Lucas spends his time writing letters to his former Jungian analyst, Karl. It is only when Eli, an eighteen-year-old young man whom the community has ostracized, begins camping out in Lucas’s backyard that an unlikely alliance takes shape and the two embark on a journey to heal their neighbors and, most importantly, themselves.

From Matthew Quick, whose work has been described by the Boston Herald as “like going to your favorite restaurant. You just know it is going to be good,” We Are the Light is an unforgettable novel about the quicksand of grief and the daily miracle of love. The humorous, soul-baring story of Lucas Goodgame offers an antidote to toxic masculinity and celebrates the healing power of art. In this tale that will stay with you long after the final page is turned, Quick reminds us that life is full of guardian angels.

I enjoyed this book, it’s a good solid read that of course, leaves me wanting more from Matthew.

This book is out now! Go read it!

Rating: 4.5 Stars

This was a deeply moving story of one man’s difficult road to recovery. After surviving a mass shooting at a local movie house, Lucas began writing letters to his analyst. He lost a lot that night, including his wife, and these letter served as a way for him to process that trauma. He detailed his struggles, his guilt, and his sadness. He wrote about the pain of his past, his family issues, and the deep and wonderful love he shared with his wife. The epistolatory format worked so well for this story which was told with so much honesty and a good amount of humor too. It allowed full access to Lucas’ thoughts and emotions which was very effective.

Lucas didn’t just mine from within himself for these letters though. He also shared information about how he and the other survivors worked together to help each other, and their town, heal. The community aspect really grabbed my heart. In the face of something so gruesome and horrible, they were able to find strength and solace in each other, as well as in the art they were creating. The idea of that brought me comfort.

This was far from a predictable tale. Quick planted many surprises in this story. I can admit that there were some things I did not see coming. Everyone knows I am trash for grief stories, and the exploration of the complexities of grief in this book was exceptional. Overall, this was an emotional roller coaster filled with both laughter and tears, and in the end, the story filled me with hope for all the people of Majestic.

4.5 stars: For the first third, this book was a 3 star for me - it felt disjointed, too heart wrenching, difficult to continue reading as I felt pulled into a deep, dark pit of sadness. The next third pulled me in, I became invested in the characters, and I began to understand the depth of the narrator’s mental illness. And then the final third, the crescendo occurs - I cried, I cheered, and I felt my heart grow three times the size.

This story reminds us what a community can do for the humans that are a part of it - the support, the love, the healing that can happen when people come out of themselves and do for others…oh my, victory for the human race!

With all that said, this is not an easy book to read. A mass shooting hits far too close to home for every American, but too close for those who have been directly impacted. And for anyone dealing with deep personal trauma, this book could be tough. It could also be incredibly healing - just know that going in.

3.5 Lucas lives in Majestic, Pa and writes daily to his Jungian therapist Karl. He sees his dead wife show up in his bedroom at night, leaving some feathers on his bed. Eli, an ostracized teen in the community, shows up to camp out in Lucas's backyard. A terrible tragedy has happened that affects the entire community. This epistolary story is told entirely through Lucas's letters to Karl. That said, I found most of this book to be quite bizarre and not terribly interesting....until I got to the very long last chapter of the book that explained it all. This and the Author's Note helped to redeem this book in a big way for me. Glad I did not DNF this book, but I was close! The Jungian psychiatry (had to look up Karl Jung and still don't understand this!), the phallic energy (and why is this is important?), the feathers from his wife's giant angel wings, not really understanding Lucas' story line (until the end) all left me very unclear on the direction the author was going. Thank you to NetGalley and Simon & Schuster for a copy of this e-book.

This book got a little preachy for me so I didn't enjoy it as much as previous books by this author but it was still beautifully written. I also am a total sucker for epistolary novels so this also fit that love! It was definitely melancholy, definitely sad but ended on a hopeful note, which, again, is very typical of this author. I hate to give anything away but I would definitely recommend this book.

We Are the Light comes out next week on November 1, 2022 and you can purchase HERE.

I remember you telling me that you had your own wounds, your own demons. That every healer is a wounded person first. And that the goal was to manage the pain, make it meaningful enough to carry on in a way that might be beneficial to others, which in turn helps to heal the self. "To make suffering meaningful," you had said so confidently. I really believed you. Bought in. And everything I've written to you in these letters demonstrates that clearly, I'd say.

So what's your excuse?

Why haven't you responded even once?

Why did you abandon me?

I'm afraid the darkness inside is winning.

What a heartbreaking, yet uplifting story. The book is written from the perspective of someone who is suffering from unimaginable grief, yet is hailed a hero by the town that he lives in. It takes us on his journey over the course of a few years - from denial, to the ups and downs of his grief and the relationships that he has with those closest to them. To his acceptance and recovery of the tragedy and nightmare experienced - and how he copes with the details of what happened and how and why those around him call him a hero.

Lucas Goodgame lives in a quaint suburb outside Philadelphia that has recently suffered from a tragedy. Lucas is considered a hero, by everyone by himself. Lucas finds himself writing to his former Jungian analyst, searching for assistance with healing - while sharing details of his deceased wife's visits as an angel. When 18 year old Eli, who is ostracized by the town, camps in Lucas's yard, an unlikely friendship is created. Together the work to heal their neighbors and themselves.

A beautiful story about the power of love and strength of community.

Thank you netgalley for my advanced reader copy.

This was so much better than better. Matthew Quick has tackled an impossibly difficult subject and used an epistolary format to allow the reader to slow down and digest each and every thought and turn of event. But you have to take the time to suss out what isn’t being said and much of that is more than heartbreaking, more than devastating, more than wondering if it is an edge from which you can ever return. Hearts are breaking, a delicate mind is being shattered, a soul is disintegrating, but then there is strength and healing and maybe hope. So much better than better.

Thank you Avid Press / Simon & Schuster and NetGalley for a copy.

I just could not get invested with the main character, Lucas, and that spoiled the book for me. Not a fan!

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
First let me explain a little of what I know about Jungian/Analytical psychology. Carl Jung coined this term. Jung believed the unconscious to be a guide or an advisor of the conscience mind. Using art therapy and dream interpretation to reach one’s goals.
We Are the Light by Matthew Quick is a series of letters written to “Karl” from his most loyal analysand, Lucas.
Setting - Majestic, PA.
Premises - Theatre is shot up and 18 killed leaving behind each of their loved ones to deal this this tragedy. Karl and Lucas both lost their wives in the shooting.
Everyone in Majestic thinks Lucas as a hero. Everyone but Lucas. Lucas, school guidance counselor narrates each letter/chapter he writes to Karl.
Prior to the shooting Lucas saw Karl every Friday evening for his “therapy”. After the shooting Karl is unavailable. Lucas begins to spy and walk past Karl’s house multiple times per day. Hence the letters to his Jungian.
Eli is an 18 year old senior. He has been ostracized from his community. He sets up a tent in Lucas’s backyard. Lucas takes him under his wing and is determined to see this young man graduate.
Ohh speaking of wing …. Lucas sees his dead wife Darcy in the form of an angel. She speaks little but mentions Eli is the way….
A heart felt short story about tearing apart an rebuilding, grieving and moving on, blaming and believing.
Thank you NetGalley and Avid Reading Press/Simon and Schuster for ARC in exchange for my honest review

Matthew Quick has a gift for telling a story.

Our main guy here is Lucas. Lucas lives in Majestic, Pennsylvania. This is a town ripped apart by a horrible tragedy. While Lucas is hailed as a hero, he doesn’t see himself as one. He has lost his wife. Rather she is dead but still visits faithfully. She is an angel now and Lucas can’t very well go around saying that. Instead, he writes to his Jungian analyst, Karl.

Although Karl doesn’t answer the letters are revealing and cathartic. Then he finds a boy living in his backyard. Eli is eighteen and has no one. He isn’t a favorite in town but Lucas and Eli form a bond that could heal the entire town.

This is a beautiful story of resilience and the beauty of art as well its healing powers. Guardian angels are truly among us.

NetGalley/ November 1st, 2022, by Avid Reader Press / Simon Schuster


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Lucas Goodgame is being hailed a hero in quaint, suburban Majestic, Pennsylvania. With the help of his Jungian analyst Karl and his deceased-but-now-in-angel-form wife Darcy, Lucas is perhaps more untouched by the tragedy that struck Majestic than he should be.

As life in Majestic attempts to clunk forward, a most unexpected visitor arrives in Lucas' backyard: eighteen year-old Eli, whom the town has shunned for reasons that make no sense to Lucas. Together, they decide to embark on an artistic venture to make a movie and reunite Majestic in the name of healing. Little does Lucas know, there's healing to be done in every corner of Majestic, especially within himself.

There's little I can say, readers, that'll truly do this book justice. Like "Silver Linings Playbook," it's offbeat, quirky, and has an uncanny knack for evoking laughs in the most inappropriate of points. In "We Are the Light" Matthew Light, dare I say, goes quite a bit deeper and darker, into territory that not every reader will be ready to venture into. Please, read the content warnings before you start this book; it is a heavy read. But more notably, this book is also an important story about grief, healing, and mental health--the dark underbellies and imperfect truths of them all.

About three quarters through this story, I found myself thinking "I love this, but I've read stories like this before." And then I got to the end. Quick packs an existential, emotional punch in how he transforms Lucas' character throughout the story, and through my streaming tears at the end, I was in awe. This is a beautiful story about healing through tragedy and the people who help us get there. Bravo.

🎉BOOK REVIEW🎉

We are the Light
Matthew Quick
🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟
Out TOMORROW November 1st

Guys, you need to read this book. Matthew Quick, an all time favorite author of mine, has somehow managed to make Silver Linings Playbook (his amazing debut novel) my second favorite of his books. We are the Light is now my favorite Quick book and one of the best books I have read all year.

This book centers on the town of Majestic in the aftermath of a terrible tragedy. The entire town is shaken, but our main character Lucas seems alarmingly unfazed by the event, despite his direct involvement in it and the death of his wife. He is instead focused on trying to get his jungian analyst, Karl, to start seeing him as a patient again. This novel is his letters to Karl, and all of the emotional journey that comes along with it.

This is one of those incredible books that manages to break your heart and lift it at the same time. I was immensely moved by this novel, and haven’t stopped thinking about it in the month since I completed it. This book is riveting, shocking, gut-wrenching, beautiful, and timely. I loved it so so much.

There are some big triggers with this novel, and I will leave those in the comments. Those triggers are very much handled with care and sensitivity, but are no less emotional. This novel is very much worth the pain of reading though.

Please consider buying and reading this amazing book! It releases tomorrow but is also a November Book of the Month pick! I love this novel dearly and I hope you do to!

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for an early copy of this book. And thank you Matthew Quick for making this hardened heart shed a tear.

We Are the Light by Matthew Quick is a very highly recommended epistolary novel and one of the best novels I have read this year. It is both inspiring and heartbreaking.

Lucas Goodgame lives in Majestic, Pennsylvania, and is the survivor of a horrific event that occurred in the town's movie theater where 17 people died, including his wife. He sees his deceased wife, Darcy, every night when she visits him as an angel. Darcy's best friend, Jill, has moved into the house to help care for him. Lucas is trying to come to terms with his trauma and the recovery by writing letters to his former Jungian analyst, Karl. Karl's wife always died and he is no longer seeing patients. When Eli, the eighteen-year-old brother of the shooter begins camping out in Lucas' yard, Lucas naturally wants to help him and the two come up with an idea that will help Eli and the surviving family members of the other victims heal.

The narrative of the novel is written through the letters Lucas writes to Karl in which he honestly shares his struggles, thoughts, feelings, and the events occurring. Lucas is a good person who deeply cares about others even while he is grieving, so helping Eli, who is also struggling to heal and recover after the tragic event, comes naturally. Much later the full scope of the massacre is reveal. The terms and methods of Jungian analysis are used throughout the narrative in Lucas's letters to Karl. This didn't bother me, but other readers might find it off-putting.

Lucas is a wonderful character who immediately garnered my full support. I cared about him as he wrote the letters to Karl and wanted him to find the help he so needed and was looking for. Eli's project in the novel gives him direction and helps heal Eli, but it is clear from the start that Lucas also needed help.

The epistolary presentation of the narrative is admirably and skillfully handled. Focusing on the healing of Lucas and his care for the other survivors was a meaningful way to handle the topic of a mass shooting. The twist in the novel is an emotional, poignant, and heartbreaking revelation that will lead to a breakthrough in the healing journey of Lucas. It left me a sobbing mess. This is a memorable novel that will stay with me for a long time and one of the best novels of the year.

Disclosure: My review copy was courtesy of Simon & Schuster via NetGalley.
The review will be published on Barnes & Noble, Google Books, Edelweiss, and Amazon.

A huge Thank You to The author, The publisher and NetGalley for providing the e-arc in exchange for an honest review.
BOOK OF THE YEAR!
a literal masterpiece, 'We Are the Light'

Beautiful. Go in cold and read this one. It’s Matthew Quick - which I didn’t know is the writer of the gorgeous Silver Lining Playbook. That alone means this is required reading! This novel is written in letters to the main character’s therapist, Karl. It’s tragic and complex and hopeful and a wonderful read. Heartfelt thanks to Avid Reader Press / Simon and Schuster for the advanced copy.

I have great ambivalence about this novel. While it addresses an important, contemporary issue, it is one of the most challenging (disturbing) books I have read. There were several points in the early chapters when I was tempted to label this a DNF and move on.

This is my first exposure to Mathew Quick’s work, which includes the popular “The Silver Linings Playbook.” After a self-described “tremendously dark period” in his life, the author emerged from a three-year hiatus of writer’s block to offer a deeply troubling story of a man and a community that have experienced a horrific tragedy. Through a series of letters addressed to his Jungian analyst, Lucas Goodgame slowly reveals the details of the catastrophic event that impacted so many lives.

The overall message is one of resilience and redemption as the storyline delves deeply into the mind of the protagonist following the loss of his wife and subsequently his career. Lucas, hailed a hero by the community, is mired in a grief so profound he uses his knowledge from his work with the analyst to create a reality that leads him further and further away from those who love him. He believes his healing has begun when he becomes a mentor to a teenager who has been shunned, only to discover how unbalanced he has become.

The good news is that the conclusion is inspiring and realistic, but the book requires great patience and perseverance to accompany the protagonist to the end of his journey. My problem with the book was that I never felt an emotional connection to Lucas. His meanderings in the letters felt more intellectual than emotional/spiritual despite his adept use of Jungian terminology and philosophy. Perhaps this was the author’s intent - to demonstrate how far-removed Lucas was from his authentic self, but it left me feeling more curious than compassionate for someone in so much pain. While I finished the book, I was disappointed in the read.

My thanks to the author, the publisher, and NetGalley for the privilege of reviewing this book. The opinions expressed in this review are completely my own.

This review is being posted immediately to my GoodReads account and will be posted on Amazon upon publication.

A tough read and a tough call because it's just not easy. Written as letters from Lucas, whose wife was killed in a mass shooting to his Jungian analyst Karl- because Karl will no longer see him- it covers a wide range of emotions and mental health issues. And then when Eli, the brother of the shooter, moves into the backyard, it's a novel of resilience and reconciliation. Thanks to Netgalley for the ARC. I didn't really enjoy this as there's a fair amount of understandable raw grief but it will no doubt speak to others.

Many thanks to NetGalley and Simon and Schuster Avid Press for gifting me a digital ARC of the new novel by Matthew Quick - 4.5 stars rounded up!

Lucas Goodgame lives in an idyllic Pennsylvania town, aptly named Majestic. He works at the local high school counseling students while his wife, Darcy, is a speech teacher at the nearby elementary school. They love to go to the Majestic Theater to watch films. But it was there that the unimaginable happened and 19 people died, including Darcy. The town thinks that Lucas is a hero, but he feels much different. The shooter's brother, Eli, begins camping out in Lucas' backyard and and the two form an unlikely pair.

Told in epistolary form as Lucas writes letters to his Jungian analyst, we are privy to the backstory of the tragedy and how the survivors and town struggle to heal. This sadly all too common tale of mass shootings focuses on the people and town and less about the shooter. But it's a beautifully written book filled with so many important topics - grief, mental illness, PTSD, family, community. While it may seem to be a depressing subject, in the author's skillful hands, it is a book filled with light and hope. Highly recommended.

"Why don't they love us? (...) You can't give what you don't have."

In this insightful and creative story, Matthew Quick tells about tough and challenging journey through trauma. In letters to his former Jungian analyst, Karl, Lucas Goodgame describes events following the massacre that he survived, but many didn't, including his wife. Falling in and out of depression, struggling with post-traumatic state of mind particular to just him, Lucas undertakes a significant project and helps his town to recover. And it all starts with a boy who one day sets a camping in Lucas' backyard.

I must admit I was not convinced by the story at the beginning, struggling with understanding the complexity of main character's trauma, his reasoning and essentially his pain. As a person with no such experience, I could not easily recognize facts from fiction of Lucas' mind. However, at some point I realized, that this was a part of amazing reading experience this book was. The second half of this story was enlightening, inspiring even. It gave me much better understanding on the internal struggles of the main character, but also allowed me to understand and admire the true strength of all side characters that have helped Lucas heal.

I recommend this book to all general fiction lovers. The writing is engaging, the humor smart, the plot well structured and the characters realistic to the bone.

Read if you like:
- post-trauma topic
- mental health issues
- power of community
- small-town setting