‘’I always wonder, isn’t being a good listener worth anything? Can’t you do something good for the world without standing in a crowd or shouting from a podium?’’

In a future that may not be as distant as we’d like to think, Alma returns to the island of her childhood, in East Canada, to find solace following a personal tragedy that has left her empty. In the company of the islanders and her aunt’s family, she tries to heal the wounds that have been created by loss and grief. But Nature has decided differently for the small community of Violette has been plagued by strange phenomena. Moths swarm the land, terrible storms strike hard, breaking windows, streetlamps and every glass in every house, lights flash without cause, closed flower buds open. What is worse, residents fall dead without cause and they immediately become forgotten by everyone, even their closest relations. Everyone, but Alma who has a rare gift. She can experience other people’s feelings, going through their fears and hopes, carrying their burdens on her shoulders. And all the while, the old radio tower is looming and the community is filled with the Echoes of the past, voices coming through electric appliances. As the sea level rises and rises, Alma must find the key to heal others and herself.

This is one of the most unique, haunting novels you will ever read…

‘’The sky darkened, and there was the unmistakable calm in the air, the way it felt before a storm. Another storm, right on the tail of the last one, seemed unlikely. But so far nothing about this place was predictable. An owl startled her, flying so close she felt the brush of its wings on her forehead. It landed on a branch with the body of a red squirrel clutched in its talons. The frantic silhouettes of brown bats flitted through the trees, snapping up the abundant mosquitoes.’’

I can’t say much for fear of spoiling a reading experience that must be ‘’lived’’ to become fully understood. Apart from the fact that every single paragraph is written to perfection and the characters jump right through the pages, the themes of this novel are universal and strike straight to the heart. Loss, sorrow, despair, the urge to help, the fight to heal yourself and others, the feeling of hopelessness when you know that you are battling against an enemy that cannot be defeated. And yet, you refuse to give in. You write stories to make the lives of others known, to preserve their existence, to understand your own course through the journey of a community trying to swim against a vicious current.

‘’How many times did you sit in a room and try and fail to understand yourself? A hundred? A thousand? You felt your own energy, your thoughts and emotions, all bouncing around, seemingly disconnected vibrations, and you could never quite pin them down or predict what they would do next. You could never tell when they would begin, or from which direction they would come, or when they would fade, or if they would simply cease abruptly, without warning.’’

‘’Sometimes the impossible still happens to be the thing that makes the most sense.’’


Alma is Latin for ‘’soul’’ and she is the soul of this beautiful novel. Observant, sensitive, quiet, astute, deeply compassionate, intelligent, she is the perfect main character and our guide in this special journey. Her strength makes her a true example to be followed. It is such a joy to witness her determination to narrate the stories of her friends, to keep their memory alive amid bitter goodbyes and growing uncertainty while searching into the void for her beloved without losing her shrewdness and her kindness for a single minute, something so rare in today’s literature that wants the majority of ‘heroines’ behaving as stupid as it gets to make them ‘strong’ and ‘feminist’. Spare us…Alma is not afraid to assert her right to fight against time and space - quite literally - and refuses to accept defeat. The end may be inevitable but what better way to exit according to our rules? The rest of the characters are also a joy to read, deeply humane, kind, realistic. A cast that is a breath of fresh air, despite the ‘heavy’ themes of the novel.

‘’The past is where I live and I like it that way,’’ she said flatly. ‘’Everything that really matters to me is in the past.’’

At times reminding me of the excellent film Frequency, starring Jim Caviezel, this novel is a tranquil, tender, bittersweet whisper into the void that has been Contemporary Literature of late. Without the need for gimmicks, rich in an unsettling, eerie - almost supernatural - feeling guided by incorporeal voices and the wings of Death that we cannot escape, Jessica Bryant Klagmann has written an elegy for a planet on the verge of destruction and a hymn to the fighting spirit, the resilience and the gentleness of the human soul.

‘’We heard it, and we felt it, the pulse of a dying planet that had stories it could no longer tell on its own. It was beautiful and comforting, that rhythm - suffused with pieces of everyone and everything we had loved - but it was also broken.’’

Many thanks to Lake Union Publishing and NetGalley for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Not really sure what to call this book, but had a hard time getting into it. I don't think I was the target audience for this book.

The description of the book and the cover is what really pulled me in, but honestly, just wasn't for me.

Thank you NetGalley and publisher for my E-ARC in exchange for my honest review.

What a great book. A dystopian ghost story set in a small seaside town filled with quirky characters.
Such a beautiful tale of grief anf how we deal with it. How we let go (or not), of people and places. How we hold on to the remains of the dying planet and the remains of our broken relationships.
Loved it!

After the mysterious disappearance of her fiancé, Alma Hughes moves to a remote island in the North Atlantic, where she hopes to weather her grief and nurture her ailing dog. She has tremendous social anxiety and reaching the solitary island brings a little hope in her. But the strange town of Violette has mysteries as well.
I was surprised by the easy flow of this dystopia and the beauty of the writing is easy to love. This novel of love and loss, and ultimately learning to live through an intense grief is fascinating.

There is a radio tower and the mystery of the radio tower broadcastings add an intriguing twist. On this doomed island haunted by echoes of the departed, Alma searches for meaning in her future in the radio broadcasts and dares to discover the power of hope among the living. Her constant hope to reach for her fiancé Alex is sad yet hopeful.
The only thing that made this book a little difficult to wade through is the pace. It’s a bit of a slow burn, but the emotional payoff is worth it once you finish it. It is a weird but good novel but the hope of ultimate tying of some loose ends remains unresolved.

Wow, this book had me hooked from start to finish. Great read, really holds your attention! This book is intriguing and genuinely unique. Would recommend this :)

This Impossible Brightness provides a view of Alma's life, which some may consider tragic, as she seeks mental refuge in Violette, a city threatened to be swept away. Echoes, voices, and whispers are present throughout the island and her life. A story largely focused on grief and grief navigation, and also the importance of life and the strange veil that separates the living from the dead, "This Impossible Brightness" weaves together modern issues with mystical sentiments. It is a very slow burn, spanning nearly a lifetime, and diving into 4-5 different lives/stories. Overall, I would give 3.5. It was difficult to fully follow at times, and did get very slow at points, but overall it was worth the read.

3.5/5 stars

I find myself torn over this book. I dearly enjoyed the initial premise of this book, and I was intrigued by the part science fiction part fever dream of it all from the beginning.

What I loved:
- the magic of it all, the transmissions and the echoes
- Theo
- the processing of grief
- the prose. THE POTENTIAL

What I was medium on:
- the climate science. Not that it's an issue in general (and it was set up in the beginning) I just don't pick out or discard books based on this generally. It carried through well, it was just also strange to have the main story start in only a couple years?
- the developmental editing. The varying inconsistent change in perspectives and times that - while clearly indicated- still aren't a preference of mine. Same goes for the stretches of a story within a story. Also, starting with a prologue that Is referenced once but who's character never shows up aside from that reference? I really thought at first the story was going to be more about just people receiving random transmissions in their own home. It's not that the transmissions don't play a role, just... not in the way I anticipated

Before I get into things I truly did not like I will say that I did overall enjoy the pacing. I just didn't enjoy part three.

My major gripe with this story is that there's just so Much going on. Enough so that while the ending didn't come out of nowhere, it very much was not anticipated (by me at least). I'd say that for this kind of book, that was a negative experience.

I don't think that reading this was a waste of time, by any means. For the majority of my read, I really enjoyed myself. I love a dreamy, weaved together story but this was a little too unfocused for me.

This was such a strange read, but very cool. It was so well written, but the descriptions were a lot and it became hard to hard so I couldn’t get into it.

i loved this book. well written and overall loved the adventure i was taken on. a definite recommend

thanks lake union and netgalley. all thoughts are my own

Magically realism and environmental fiction — the writing was good and the ideas of echos of people and how the author approached grief was well done. I love any book that is based in Atlantic Canada . I enjoyed the echoes concept used throughout but I did find the story hard to follow at the beginning with so many characters but I quickly got invested in the echoes and Alma’s grief journey but my focus and interest wained closer to the end of the novel but overall the writing was good and had some intriguing characters.


Thanks to NetGalley and union lake publishing for this ARC . This is my honest review .

Quirky original story based on a women's journey through grief with an underlying message about climate change.
Alma is what i would describe as an empath who feels everything deeply not only her own feelings but other people's and the world around her.
We join her on her journey of her life and all the ups that can throw at you.
Although not the kind of book I'd usely pick to read I did enjoy it.

📖 18 / 100 in 2024
✍️ Magical Realism / Contemporary Fiction
⭐️ 5 stars

This Impossible Brightness by Jessica Bryant Klagmann

Thank you to @netgalley and Lake Union Publishing for the ARC!

for you if you like ....

magical realism, morse code, climate fiction, extended family, radio transmissions, Oscar Wilde, themes of love and loss, tattoos, small islands, first love, Maine, constellations

Following a difficult loss, Alma, an empath, makes the empowering decision to relocate to an island in the midst of climate upheaval to live in an environment where she gets some relief from feeling other people’s feelings, and discovers hope along the way.

A good follow-up read to books such as The Light Pirate, In the Lives of Puppets, The Mountain in the Sea, and The Invisible Husband of Frick Island… Already intriguing from the outset, this book became deliciously riveting about 50 pages in, when a shared event links a small group of townspeople from Violette.

Alma’s journey parallels that of the natural world around her, and there is a sense of becoming one with nature and wildness. Witnessing Alma’s reclaiming of herself while she chooses to stay - despite it being far easier to go - was a delight. Many details in this book were impossibly beautiful, much like the author purports are the details of our changing world. I’m grateful to Bryant Klagmann for the gift of this stunning and atmospheric novel.

This Impossible Brightness by Jessica Bryant Klagmann was an interesting and very well written story.
I found myself being sucked into the writing and thought the characters were very well developed.

Thank You NetGalley and Lake Union Publishing for your generosity and gifting me a copy of this amazing eARC!

I absolutely loved THIS IMPOSSIBLE BRIGHTNESS. Jessica Bryant Klagmann is a wise and thoughtful storyteller. From the first pages I knew I was in capable hands. There is something very spellbinding about her prose. The story jumps around in time and yes, there's a dystopian element, but don't let that turn you off. It's handled so well. Honestly, the novel feels like real life in the best of ways, and I love the sense of discovery and wonder that permeates these pages. This may be a long shot, but I feel like there's a potential comparison to Ruth Ozeki. If you want a fast-moving, linear plot, look elsewhere, but if you want a unique and lovely novel that explores the nature of grief and human connection, THIS IMPOSSIBLE BRIGHTNESS is likely to become a big favorite. I highly recommend it for fans of thoughtful literary fiction.

Thanks to NetGalley and Lake Union for providing me with an advance e-galley; all opinions in this review are my own.

This Impossible Brightness feels like a lot of genres at one time. The storyline was very interesting, but at no point did I feel invested in the story. The idea and concept were really interesting, so I'm not entirely sure where my disconnect happened. Still would recommend, I think it was personal for me.

This Impossible Brightness by J B Klugmann, published by Lake Union Publishing is a full length stand alone. A story that spans decades, jumps between past and present and had me in knots.
I read the blurb and was intrigued only to get lost between the storyline, confusing and unstrukturiert, I just couldn't warm up to the characters.
The author paints a dystopian picture, halfheartedly I might add, just like the story of Alma and Alex is just that, halfheartedly.

Thank you
Well written
Easy reading.
Recommended
The characters are coming alive through writing.
Sea lovers will like this book.
B

The writing was excellent, and the story quickly had me engaged. It was toward the end that I was having a problem with it. I loved the adventure and the mystery, but I did not like how things lost their flow in the plot toward latter part of the book.

What a fascinating premise this novel had. It did take me a little while to really get into it, but once I did, I raced through this because the stories were wonderful and I wanted to find out more. This is one of those books that can’t be explained, you have to read them to get it.

I enjoyed this one a lot.

Recommended.



Thank you to Lake Union Publishing and NetGalley for the DRC

A gorgeous cover, very inviting. I was intrigued! I think Jessica crafted a story unlike anything I've read before. It had action, heartbreak, resiliency, and more. Thanks to NetGalley for the ARC.