First off, apologies for the late feedback, I am a bad blogger... I know...

I read this a few months after my mum passed away, when doing anything hurt and felt like a betrayal, but this book allowed me to fully submerge myself and for that I will be forever grateful. Stunning.

I am organizing my Netgalley library and I see that this is one of the books that I had downloaded on a computer disk that stopped working therefore it was lost. I am sorry not to have been able to read it and I hope this will not hinder approving future requests of any of your books

This looked like a great book, but unfortunately it was archived before I could read it. I will pay more attention to that before requesting. Thank you.

I finished this awhile back, but was unfortunately pretty underwhelmed and bored. The writing was good, I just couldn't connect or care about any of the narratives.

I found this to be an enjoyable read, keeping me on my toes throughout. The storyline was written well and flowed seamlessly. I look forward to reading more by this author!

Thank you Sarah Combs and Candlewick Press for a free copy of The Light Fantastic in exchange for an honest review.

Seven tightly interwoven narratives. Three harrowing hours. One fateful day that changes everything.

Delaware, the morning of April 19. Senior Skip Day, and April Donovan’s eighteenth birthday. Four days after the Boston Marathon bombing, the country is still reeling, and April’s rare memory condition has her recounting all the tragedies that have cursed her birth month. And just what was that mysterious gathering under the bleachers about? Meanwhile, in Nebraska, Lincoln Evans struggles to pay attention in Honors English, distracted by the enigmatic presence of Laura Echols, capturer of his heart. His teacher tries to hold her class’s interest, but she can’t keep her mind off what Adrian George told her earlier. Over in Idaho, Phoebe is having second thoughts about the Plan mere hours before the start of a cross-country ploy led by an Internet savant known as the Mastermind. Is all her heartache worth the cost of the Assassins’ machinations? The Light Fantastic is a tense, shocking, and beautifully wrought exploration of the pain and pathos of a generation of teenagers on the brink—and the hope of moving from shame and isolation into the light of redemption.

Fantastic read, and the narrative did a good job of playing the story out.

This one didn't do it for me, unfortunately. It was an interesting concept and I thought Comb's writing was beautiful, but the multiple narrators made the story difficult to understand. Additionally, I didn't see a need for some of the narrators/characters- they didn't add anything new/interesting to the storyline.

I ended up DNFing this book a while back since I could not connect with the constantly shifting perspectives.

This book is riveting. So much of our society is steeped in tragedy, and this book explores that a bit which I think was refreshing to see it not so much tip toed around. Having turned 5 on 9/11 myself, I have often found myself, when growing up, guilty for even celebrating. This book focuses a bit on moving on in the wake of tragedy and the lives of a group of teens, all quite different, and all coping with being alive in their own ways. Heartwrenching and realistic, frightening yet poetically told. I enjoyed this book.

This looked like a great book, but unfortunately it was archived before I could read it. I will pay more attention to that before requesting. Thank you.

“The truth is that I couldn't not be in love with the world if I tried.”

Taking place in the wake of the 2013 Boston Marathon tragedy, this book follows seven characters that are about to enter an even more personal tragedy in this already tumultuous atmosphere. With a focus on emotion, Sarah Combs explores the individual behind mass tragedy, and the layers of feeling created by a single moment.

I’ve had an advanced copy of this novel waiting for me on my kindle for a while now, and I have to admit I really regret having put it off that long. The Light Fantastic was both everything I expected from a novel in this setting, but also everything I didn’t expect. It is emotional and dramatic, dark and harrowing, but at the same time it carried the light of human experience as well, the hope and optimism that most of us carry, and a love of life alongside the fear of death.

It constructs this whirlwind of emotion and experience through seven characters, all different in their background, personality, and way of thinking, and these differences come through clearly in each perspective. No two seem to run together, as all speakers focus on different external and internal parts of the tale to tell, but at the same time they create a unified front of human experience, create a whole for the reader to see the story in. Additionally, the characters are not truly divided, as there are always connections between them. It removes any strict distinctions attached to the character by their backgrounds or actions, and rather than there being some who are good and some who are bad, it is more of a web of action and inaction and what led to events transpiring. Additionally, even though the seven characters are spread all over the country, they are still strongly connected. There are whispers of past acquaintances as well as common themes and lines that play into each of the seven narratives. It adds further to that “web,” and shows how truly connected everything is.

My favorite part of this book had to be the writing. It’s written as a stream of consciousness rather than ordered into structured and planned sentences. While this has its downsides and makes it an informal sort of writing, it pairs really well with the events in The Light Fantastic. Since the focus of this novel is emotional, rather than the events actually taking place, this style fits perfectly and helps the reader feel what is going on, rather than just see it.

My only issue with the book is the ending itself. While what happened and the way it happened all worked well with the story, and the reveals of the “who” behind certain events also worked, the way it was presented somehow didn’t fully impact me. The entire book is an entire pathway up, of increasing intensity, but the ending didn’t seem to be a final explosion of this build up. I won’t say that the ending fizzled, but rather that the final climax did not fully match the amount of build up it was given. It left me wanting more still from the story, some greater revelation or understanding, but regardless this didn’t impact my enjoyment of the overall novel too much.

In the end, I do still highly recommend this novel. It’s a quick yet intense read and tackles issues still relevant to today. Even though the novel is a few years old at this point, it feels as if it could have been written in today’s America, which is part of why this book affected me as much as it did.

I love me a good multiple narrative/view point book. But this was a bit tedious and didn't mesh as much as a good multi view point book does.

Thank you Netgalley for the opportunity to preview this ARC of The Light Fantastic.

This book bounces around between a HS cast of characters, all over the country, and all wrapped up in their own life threatening/altering situations. We get their own unique voice as they give their own accounts.

I'll be honest, it was intriguing, and I understand during these horrible days of school violence, why this was written. But it was really all over the place. And I appreciated how artistic the author was being with each character's tale, sometimes I felt like I was reading a Chuck Palahniuk novel, but on top of everything bouncing around, it also made it harder to grasp what was happening. Plus the ending was really bland considering how built up it was.

Did not finish. It was too slow for me. I took a break from reading so I can't remember the details of this book for a more thorough review

Even though the book was confusing, the plot managed to engage me from the very start and it was cool to see into the characters' minds, to try to understand what made them do what they did.
This book is based on a terrifying topic and, even though the characters are fictional, we can' deny that there's realness inside it. And it also even mentions tragedies that actually happened in real life, so it's not that far from our reality.

Told from seven different perspectives we get to see what happens across the country on April 19th.
April Donovan, Lincoln Evans, Gavin, Sandra Heslip, The Mastermind, Phoebe, and Pallav Gakhar.

The main character does appear to be April, but after the first little bit we don't get to see her as much instead the focus goes onto someone called 'The Mastermind'. Who has brought multiple different fellow teenagers together to take out their bully or someone who has 'ruined' their lives. Yes, this is extreme but as the book goes on you can see how this happened to all of them and why they ended up following 'The Masterminds' plan.

In the Light Fantastic not only do we see things from the people wanting revenge but two of the people trying to stop it and one that shows what the others are doing while the person is getting revenge.

This is a hard book to read not just because of how often the events that happened in this book happen in real life, but because of how real it felt. You could feel all the emotions that the characters were feeling and the fear and the anger were real.
I am glad I did end up reading this one, and it did show some motives as to what makes people break.

The Light Fantastic is told through so many different perspectives. Every POV is written differently. Some are first person, some are third, and one of them uses #hashtags in random sentences. I guess that character is supposed to be edgy and cool, or something. I liked how the POVs were told differently, mainly because it was easy to distinguish between them, but also because it was just interesting to read!

I didn’t really feel for many, if any, of the characters. With a book like this, I don’t know if you’re supposed to. We get a very brief snapshot into the lives of these characters, and we don’t actually know very much about them. All we know is that they’re all troubled in their own ways, ranging from a bit lost to full-on suicidal. I’ll warn you now, if you choose to read this: it’s not a happy book.

The plot is still confusing to me, even after I’ve finished it. I’m not particularly sure what the story is, or what happened when, or anything. But I couldn’t stop reading. I don’t know what it is that made me stick with it till the end, but something pulled me in and I couldn’t put it down.

Reading back on what I’ve written, this is probably the vaguest book review I’ve ever done. I don’t think I’ve ever read a book that’s left me so confused! Not only confused about what happened, but confused about why I liked it so much! It’s weird because it’s not even a highly-rated book for me – I probably wouldn’t read it again – but I’ve really enjoyed reading it. It was written so well it was almost poetic, and I’ve never read anything like it.

Thank you, Sarah Combs, for making me so confused with your book. Clearly you have some kind of mystical charm that kept me hanging on to every word, even if I wasn't entirely sure what was going on.

The Light Fantastic by Sarah Combs deals with one of the most pressing and important issues of our time. Namely, the alienation of young people and the connection with school shootings.
April Donovan is turning 18 soon and she can't help rehashing all of the tragedies that have happened during the month of April thanks to her rare memory condition that lets her remember the dates of terrible events accurately. April is not the only main character of the story but she seems to be the one who is at the foundation of the story. There are other characters from all over the country as well but the story flips back and forth between them all.
It took me a while to get used to the style of the book but the format is needed in order to tell the coordinated stories of others involved in the crisis.
The Light Fantastic is an important examination of teenagers who are feeling desperate enough that they do the wrong thing. There are no easy answers to this issue but understanding why teenagers might feel alienated is a start. All in all, The Light Fantastic is an absorbing and thought provoking read.
I received a copy of this book from the publishers via Netgalley for free in exchange for an honest review.

The date is April 19th, 2013, which just happens to be April Donovan's birthday. April has hyperthymesia, which in very basic terms means she has a superhuman memory. This can be good and bad. For example, remember that birthday part you had as a little kid? Imagine remembering every single amazing detail. Now think of the worst thing that's happened in your life, and imagine remembering every single horrible detail. Remember 9/11. Remember the Boston Marathon bombings. Remember school shootings. These are the things April has to deal with.

This novel is told from multiple perspectives, from April herself, to her friends, to people she's never met. They all intertwine in some way, and while I usually enjoy that I felt it wasn't executed perfectly. There were many times where I'd start a new chapter and I would have no idea who was talking, then I'd find out a few pages later and have to re-read to fully comprehend what just happened. Apart from that, I did enjoy the writing. I felt most of the characters had little quirks that shone through every now and then.

As always there were characters I loved and characters I disliked. I loved April, her abundance of facts around dates was always interesting and while I realise it would be annoying to constantly have those thoughts in real life, it was interesting for me to read. Pheobe was also a character I enjoyed. After joining an online forum, she ends up meeting a bunch of other teenagers and there comes The Plan. As the date for The Plan's execution draws closer she starts to have doubts. I loved that she was just a regular girl, I guess it helps dispell the stereotype of people that commit gun crimes.

This book deals with a lot of serious topics. Firstly, gun violence in America. I know everyone jokes about how gun crazy the USA is but I think Combs shone a much-needed spotlight on it. I think it would be interesting to hear an American's opinion on this, obviously, they wouldn't think anything that happens in this is "normal" but I feel a large proportion of American's have been desensitised to guns. The thing I liked about the book in regard to guns is that ordinary people are the ones that have guns, and I guess it makes you realise that it's normal people that usually conduct these horrible shootings.

This definitely an interesting read, and has many important messages people should be thinking about.

Loved it.can't wait for a sequel (if there is one, though i stronhly hope so. )a good ,engaging book that hooked me from the start