Timely and heartbreaking, told as a series of letters to a therapist. Loved this book as I'm training to eventually become a therapist myself. Thank you to the publisher for early access to this.

I have never requested an ARC faster than when I requested this one. Matthew Quick has yet to write a book that doesn’t make me feel all the feels.

Told in the form of letters to his therapist, Lucas deals with the aftermath of a horrific shooting during a movie screening in which many townspeople, his wife among them, were killed. While he works through (or maybe…doesn’t really work through) his trauma, the brother of the shooter befriends him and the two plan a monster movie, prominently featuring the theatre and all the Survivors as actors.

The Survivors accepting Eli and not holding the tragedy against him was refreshing and lovely; the fact that they all wanted to participate in his movie and confront their grief so viscerally made me emotional. I rooted for him and of course for Lucas, who constantly struggled with being hailed a hero for his actions during the shooting when he certainly didn’t want to be considered one. His concern for everyone else’s well-being, even at the detriment of his own, was a lot to take in.

Adding We Are the Light as another one of Quick’s “sad but hopeful” reads. I wouldn’t want it any other way.
Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley!

It is so good to have another Matthew Quick novel on the shelves. This one is timely and cerebral. Lucas Goodgame is a high school counselor in Majestic, PA. Both he and the town are living in the aftermath of a tragic mass shooting in the Majestic Theater. While you can doubt Lucas’s sanity, you can’t doubt his heart. He solely wants healing for himself and the community he loves.

The book is written as a series of letters from Lucas to his Jungian analyst who won’t see him anymore after both lost their wives in the shooting. His wife’s best friend, Jill, has moved in with Lucas and helps him heal. She was my favorite character by far. She was broken too, in her own way. In fact, everyone in the book is broken - which is so true to life.

The real drama starts when a young man who Lucas had counseled sets up a tent in his back yard. At that point, Lucas is forced to focus on someone else instead of his own mental health battle. Their relationship becomes transformative.

I admit that it took a while for me to warm to the epistolary style of this book. I still would rather have had a straight timeline. But the story is so good and filled with rich characters - all of whom are hurting in their own way. The author does a great job in exploring and slowly revealing the trauma of each one. After reading the acknowledgements at the end, it feels like Quick has poured a lot of himself and his own journey into the book, and I respect that.

As I write this review, I’ve also been reading about the mass shooting in Buffalo. What will it take to heal so many wounds? Quick answers that for Majestic, PA in a unique and seemingly crazy way. But it worked for me.

QUICK TAKE: as expected from the author of SILVER LIININGS PLAYBOOK, a very dark and quirky story about an unlikely friendship between two people connected by a horrible tragedy. I could see the melodramatic (and somewhat emotionally manipulative) ending coming from a miillion miles away, but that doesn't mean it didn't resonate with me (aka i bawled my face off). Just tread lightly here, this is difficult material. There's light at the end of the tunnel, but you're gonna have to earn it!

We are the Light is an epistolary novel in which the narrator Lucas writes a series of letters to his Jungian therapist. Lucas is grieving after the death of his wife in a mass shooting in a cinema in which 17 people were killed.
The story is set in a small US town which has been greatly traumatised by this tragic event.
Despite his own suffering Lucas who was a high school counsellor takes a young troubled man under his wing and this relationship is central to healing in the book.
It’s a very moving tale with a love story at the heart of it.
I wasn’t sure I’d like it to begin with, thinking it might be too sentimental but it really shows the pain of mental illness and the damage some people cause others as well as the goodness of some people.
Thanks to Netgalley and Avid Reader Press for the opportunity to read an advance review copy in return for an honest review.

After a tragic shooting at a movie theater, Lucas Goodgame decides to write letters to his Jungian analyst, Karl. Lucas also befriends a former student of his who happens to be the brother of the shooter. Powerful and at times heartbreaking, this is the portrait of a man in tremendous pain trying to cope with loss in the best way he knows how.

Writing: 5/5 Characters: 4.5/5 Plot: 4/5

I’m blown away by this book and the way the author has managed to write about an incredibly difficult subject so powerfully without once becoming maudlin, trite or descending into Hallmark territory. I can tell you that I out and out cried (and not quietly) through the last third because of the way the author managed to capture the essence of such deeply felt and universal core emotions in mere words. I’m not doing this justice because I don’t have that skill — you’ll have to just trust me!

The story is about a town which has experienced an inexpressible tragedy. It does not focus on the tragedy itself but on the slow process of healing — for everyone — and the way Lucas Goodgame — a high school counselor led the way while simultaneously struggling himself. The narrative is contained in a series of letters Lucas writes to his Jungian analyst who inexplicably closed his practice after the event and stopped responding.

For all that I can’t remember the last time I cried so much at a book, I was never once depressed by it — far more inspired by it. The last line was a brilliant pulling together of the whole.

I was introduced to a new (for me) word which I just loved: numinous — having a strong religious or spiritual quality; indicating or suggesting the presence of a divinity.

While there are a lot of great quotes in this book, I don’t feel that I can include them without ruining the flow of the book, so … you’ll have to read them in context yourself!

Timely. Compelling. Heartbreaking. Hopeful. Quirky and wrenching, this is not your typical “triumph after tragedy” tale.