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Light from Distant Stars

di Shawn Smucker

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7823340,735 (3.7)Nessuno
"When Cohen Marah steps over the body of his dead father on a cold spring morning, he steps into a labyrinth of memory. In the week that follows, he must confront his traumatic past, a violent present, and the most frightening question of all--did he kill his father?"--
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A BookishFirst win.

This book is about the story of Cohen Marah, who is the son of a funeral home owner. Cohen has a sister, Kaye, who left with their mom when their parents separated. This book takes place over 5 days in the life of Cohen. It starts with him stepping over his dad's bloodied body inside the funeral parlor. His dad is brought to the hospital and an investigation is started. During the course of the investigation, Cohen encounters Ava, a girl from his childhood, who is now a detective. Cohen wonders if he killed his father but he isn't sure. During the course of this week, he relives a time from his childhood where he encounter Hippie and Than, siblings who are desperately trying to escape The Beast. Cohen joins them in their search with a disastrous ending. He had buried these memories and isn't quite sure why they are coming out now. While visiting his dad in the hospital, he befriends a young boy whose grandfather is in the next room.

I have never read a book by this author before and I almost gave up when The Beast was introduced but I stuck with the story. It was a good story but a bit hard to get through. ( )
  Cathie_Dyer | Feb 29, 2024 |
Umm...wow. This book was fantastic. Smucker has a beautiful, poetic prose and it drew me right in despite it being written in third person, present. Smucker has greatly grown as a writer since his first novel and it is shown through Light from Distant Stars.
I found this book very intriguing because of how the lines of reality and fantasy blurred. It kept me on my toes with the lights turned on but still managed to keep me immersed in the story.
After this beautiful, heartbreaking novel, I will certainly be reading future books by this author.

Rating: 4 Stars
Content: 1 Star

*I received a complementary copy of this novel from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. All thoughts are my own and a positive review was not required. ( )
  libraryofemma | Oct 20, 2023 |
(1.5 / 5)

The book opens on the main character, Cohen, finding his father dead in the basement of the funeral home where Cohen works with his father. In the ensuing difficulties that come from such an event, Cohen finds himself beset with memories of his childhood and adolescence, split definitively by an event that basically destroyed his family. The story seems to a bit of an examination of father-son relationships.

As you can see by my rating, I did not care for this book. For one thing, I was expecting more of an investigation into how the father died than was presented, especially considering that most summaries I read ended with, "Did he kill his father?" As it turns out, it was more introspection and reminiscing.

Even as I started to realize that this book was more drama than mystery, it still presented me with little of interest. There are two threads followed--Cohen in present time dealing with what happened to his father (Spoiler: he wasn't even dead at the very beginning of the book; he was near death, but was in the hospital for a week before dying, and the reason that Cohen thought his father was dead when he wasn't is never explained, even though he questions it himself. This leads me to feel like this was just sensationalism for the blurb.) and his memories of significant events of his past. The present-time storyline is fairly uneventful, filled with light conversations with his pregnant sister, confessions to a retired priest, and then sudden action near the end of the book that I didn't really understand the point of. The past-time storyline has a lot more going on, though it drags a bit here and there too.

There are 2 more significant events in his past, one of which led to the split that broke up his family, and the other of which comes across as a supernatural element, which is maybe a bit confusing in this book. After some time, I came to suspect what was really going on, and turned out to be correct. However, it is severely lacking in explanation--not about how this supernatural memory came to be, but about how it actually made sense even in context.

Building from that, because of the supernatural element, as well as a particular scene in the present-day storyline, I had a very difficult time knowing what was real later in the book, and I am not sure that was meant to be the case. It led me to be fairly unimpressed by the sort-of twisty action scene that happened near the end. Also, there was one huge plot thread just left hanging...something that happened during Cohen's adolescence that came to light near the end that should have had repercussions, and instead, somehow just became a catalyst for Cohen's realization (or reminder) that his father was not quite how he'd always seen him.

I wanted to like this book. I read a couple of reviews by others that were glowing, and the premise sounded interesting. However, by the time I was 75% through, I felt like nothing had happened, and I just wasn't getting the point of it. There is also quite a bit of description and figurative language, which bogged down the story for me. By the last half of the book, I had started to skim the descriptions, especially every time the narrator, whether as a child, teenager, or adult, stared at the sky or the city. This happened often. It let me to wonder if there was some sort of symbolism I was simply missing.

Final thoughts: The book is labeled as Christian, though if I'd not seen that label on it, I never would have guessed it was meant to be Christian. The main character does visit a church and confess several times through the book, and there is a bit of a heart change near the end, but to me, it was fairly shallow. This book is simply not my taste, but for those who enjoy descriptive and figurative writing styles and drama and introspection, it may be a great read for you.

Thank you to Netgalley and Revell for providing me a copy of this book to review. ( )
  Kristi_D | Sep 22, 2023 |
Questa recensione è stata scritta per Recensori in anteprima di LibraryThing.
I DNF this book it was not for me.
  JodiPM | Jan 16, 2023 |
Questa recensione è stata scritta per Recensori in anteprima di LibraryThing.
Shawn Smucker takes you along on quite a ride with Cohen Marsh
as childhood memories come rushing back after he realizes his father may be dying. As Cohen faces his demons, both real and imagined, he also learns a lot about himself, finds forgiveness and grows closer to those around him. He finally finds peace with his feelings toward his father when the priest tells him, "The one who came to you in the dark and comforted you, held you up, loved you, that was your true father." Sometimes it’s hard to distinguish reality from fantasy; and there were times I wondered about Cohen’s mental health as bits of memories came forward, but in the end it’s all brought together for a clear picture of his life.
  paytonashley97 | Aug 22, 2022 |
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"When Cohen Marah steps over the body of his dead father on a cold spring morning, he steps into a labyrinth of memory. In the week that follows, he must confront his traumatic past, a violent present, and the most frightening question of all--did he kill his father?"--

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Il libro di Shawn Smucker Light from Distant Stars è stato disponibile in LibraryThing Early Reviewers.

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