My Amazon and Goodreads review of Winter Light by Martha Engber (Rating 5) – As Darkly Bleak and Crystalline Bright as its Title. Winter Light by Martha Engber can be as darkly bleak and as crystalline bright as its title. Fifteen-year-old Mary has nothing going for her except grit. She also has good looks and a brain, but the first makes her a target while the second makes her smart enough to see what a bad hand she’s been dealt. Mary’s mother died when she was five, her alcoholic father is abusive, her friends are burnouts. She’s poor and shivering through the harsh Chicago winter of 1978-79. Desperate to escape her life for one she can’t even define, Mary reaches out to Kathleen, a prissy classmate from a storybook world. To their mutual surprise, they click. But Winter Light is not a simple rags to riches, loser to winner tale. Bad luck dogs Mary, dragging her back two steps for every step forward. As a fiction writer myself (see my Amazon author page and Goodreads author page), I’m impressed by the agile plot turns. Although promoted as a YA novel – not a genre I typically read – the depth of Engber’s characters and her insights into the conflicted feelings of two girls fascinated by their divergence as well as their points of connection, make this a compelling book for readers of all ages.
