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Lighthouse Island
The bestselling author of the highly praised novels The Color of Lightning, Stormy Weather, and Enemy Women pushes into new territory with this captivating and atmospheric story set in the far future-a literary dystopian tale resonant with love and hope
In the coming centuries the world's population has exploded and covered the earth with cities, animals are nearly all gone and drought has taken over so that cloudy water is issued by the quart. There are no maps, no borders, no numbered years. On this urban planet the only relief from overcrowding and the harsh rule of the big Agencies is the television in every living space, with its dreams of vanished waterfalls and the promise of virtual vacations in green spaces, won by the lucky few.
It is an unwelcoming world for an orphan like Nadia Stepan. Abandoned by her parents on a crowded street when she was four, the little girl is shuttled from orphanage to orphanage, foster-family to foster-family. Nadia grows up dreaming of the vacation spot called Lighthouse Island, in a place called the Pacific Northwest. She becomes obsessed with it and is determined to somehow find her way there. In the meantime this bright and witty orphan falls into the refuge of old and neglected books; the lost world of the imagination. And beyond the confusion and overcrowding and the relentless television noise, comes a radio voice from an abandoned satellite that patiently reads, over and over, the great classical books of the world-Big Radio, a voice in the night that lifts Nadia out of the dull and perpetual Present.
An opportunity for escape appears and Nadia takes it, abandoning everything to strike out for Lighthouse Island in a dangerous and sometimes comic adventure. She meets every contingency with bottomless inventiveness meets the man who changes the course of her life: James Orotov, mapmaker and demolition expert. Together they evade arrest and head north toward a place of wild beauty that lies beyond the megapolis-Lighthouse Island and its all-seeing eye.
In the coming centuries the world's population has exploded and covered the earth with cities, animals are nearly all gone and drought has taken over so that cloudy water is issued by the quart. There are no maps, no borders, no numbered years. On this urban planet the only relief from overcrowding and the harsh rule of the big Agencies is the television in every living space, with its dreams of vanished waterfalls and the promise of virtual vacations in green spaces, won by the lucky few.
It is an unwelcoming world for an orphan like Nadia Stepan. Abandoned by her parents on a crowded street when she was four, the little girl is shuttled from orphanage to orphanage, foster-family to foster-family. Nadia grows up dreaming of the vacation spot called Lighthouse Island, in a place called the Pacific Northwest. She becomes obsessed with it and is determined to somehow find her way there. In the meantime this bright and witty orphan falls into the refuge of old and neglected books; the lost world of the imagination. And beyond the confusion and overcrowding and the relentless television noise, comes a radio voice from an abandoned satellite that patiently reads, over and over, the great classical books of the world-Big Radio, a voice in the night that lifts Nadia out of the dull and perpetual Present.
An opportunity for escape appears and Nadia takes it, abandoning everything to strike out for Lighthouse Island in a dangerous and sometimes comic adventure. She meets every contingency with bottomless inventiveness meets the man who changes the course of her life: James Orotov, mapmaker and demolition expert. Together they evade arrest and head north toward a place of wild beauty that lies beyond the megapolis-Lighthouse Island and its all-seeing eye.
392 pages, Hardcover
First published September 17, 2013
About the author
Paulette Jiles
19 books2,215 followersPaulette Jiles is an American poet and novelist. Born in Salem, Missouri, she was educated at the University of Missouri with a degree in Romance Lanugages. Jiles lives in the Texas Hill Country on a small ranch.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 318 reviews
June 23, 2015
This used to be called Kansas City but now it's just city most of the way to Denver and we are called Gerrymander Eight.
And where did the animals all go?
We ate them, he said. And we took up all their space. Except for the rats, mice, and the hardier sort of bird.
He said, Always, always hide food. Never, never sign anything.
The US is now just one continuous, bleak urban landscape from sea to polluted sea. There has never been more of a gap between the haves and have-nots. People are taken from the streets and from their workplaces . . . never to be seen again.
Luckily, TELEVISION is there to anesthetize the masses and make them forget, for a while, their miserable lives. But one plucky little orphan girl, who prefers books to TV, sees an ad for a magical place called "Lighthouse Island."
Come hell or high water (and occasionally both) she is bound and determined to get herself there.
And what a dark, fraught journey it is.
She meets a scientist/engineer type fella who vows to help her escape. And, of course, they fall madly in love at that first meeting. He admires her guts (and her auburn hair), and she goes for him because he is . . . well, a guy who emits guyish pheromones, I guess.
The relatively low ratings on this book should have served as a warning. I almost took it back to the library unread, but I opened it and by the third chapter, I was hooked. And I stayed hooked until around the last quarter when everything I was enjoying floated away in a fog of bad dialogue and insta-love. That's a shame, because much of the story was very involving. Jiles' descriptions of the dystopian future and the poor souls who struggle to survive were good and darkly imagined. It seems as though she had a good, albeit derivative, idea, then didn't know what to do with it. This one moves slowly compared to some post-apocalyptic tales I've read, and yes, I must agree with the hoards of other reviewers . . .
the lack of quotation marks drove me NUTS!
And where did the animals all go?
We ate them, he said. And we took up all their space. Except for the rats, mice, and the hardier sort of bird.
He said, Always, always hide food. Never, never sign anything.
The US is now just one continuous, bleak urban landscape from sea to polluted sea. There has never been more of a gap between the haves and have-nots. People are taken from the streets and from their workplaces . . . never to be seen again.
Luckily, TELEVISION is there to anesthetize the masses and make them forget, for a while, their miserable lives. But one plucky little orphan girl, who prefers books to TV, sees an ad for a magical place called "Lighthouse Island."
Come hell or high water (and occasionally both) she is bound and determined to get herself there.
And what a dark, fraught journey it is.
She meets a scientist/engineer type fella who vows to help her escape. And, of course, they fall madly in love at that first meeting. He admires her guts (and her auburn hair), and she goes for him because he is . . . well, a guy who emits guyish pheromones, I guess.
The relatively low ratings on this book should have served as a warning. I almost took it back to the library unread, but I opened it and by the third chapter, I was hooked. And I stayed hooked until around the last quarter when everything I was enjoying floated away in a fog of bad dialogue and insta-love. That's a shame, because much of the story was very involving. Jiles' descriptions of the dystopian future and the poor souls who struggle to survive were good and darkly imagined. It seems as though she had a good, albeit derivative, idea, then didn't know what to do with it. This one moves slowly compared to some post-apocalyptic tales I've read, and yes, I must agree with the hoards of other reviewers . . .
the lack of quotation marks drove me NUTS!
February 24, 2017
Some of this was good, some of this was utterly unreadable. It was mostly a slog and it really didn't have to be. This is a poor book that could have been a fair to decent book with the help of a good editor. I also made the mistake of reading the author's goodreads profile halfway through it. She only has three reviews but here's one of them: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show.... I hate that she refers to the character in her review as "a retard, it's not 'Flowers For Algernon' but a truly unattractive retard". This makes me want to give this book one star because this truly disgusts me. But I'm trying, trying, trying to consider only the book and nothing else. Because of that I'll give it two stars, what I think it honestly deserves.
October 11, 2022
Sadly, today I decided to DNF this book. I have enjoyed so many of Paulette Jiles’ books that I really pushed myself to keep reading this, hoping it would begin to connect for me. It did not.
I so admire authors who step outside their comfort zones and write books that are unlike their usual fare. I will often give a lot of latitude for such bravery, but this venture outside the norm was not a good departure for Jiles. This book is dystopia, with all the most common and cliche hallmarks that go with that genre. There is nothing new here and, beyond that, there is nothing being said. It is just a “this is how horrible it could be” novel. I could not help comparing it to one of my favorite dystopian series, the The MaddAddam Trilogy: Oryx and Crake / The Year of the Flood / MaddAddam by Margaret Atwood, and finding it sorely lacking. Atwood was constantly making us see that hubris and technology in the wrong hands could lead to destruction and sorrow. I found none of that awareness here, just a premise that man is so evil at his core that he will delight in exterminating his own kind. Perhaps that is true; I hope not. Perhaps it has just all been said before.
Paulette Jiles is a marvelous writer of historical fiction. One of the things I most admire about her books is the way she carefully researches them and the way she rescues real-life characters from the past and sheds light on their lives. She is quite skilled and adept at this. I hope she will return to that genre. This experiment outside the box was a true failure for me.
I so admire authors who step outside their comfort zones and write books that are unlike their usual fare. I will often give a lot of latitude for such bravery, but this venture outside the norm was not a good departure for Jiles. This book is dystopia, with all the most common and cliche hallmarks that go with that genre. There is nothing new here and, beyond that, there is nothing being said. It is just a “this is how horrible it could be” novel. I could not help comparing it to one of my favorite dystopian series, the The MaddAddam Trilogy: Oryx and Crake / The Year of the Flood / MaddAddam by Margaret Atwood, and finding it sorely lacking. Atwood was constantly making us see that hubris and technology in the wrong hands could lead to destruction and sorrow. I found none of that awareness here, just a premise that man is so evil at his core that he will delight in exterminating his own kind. Perhaps that is true; I hope not. Perhaps it has just all been said before.
Paulette Jiles is a marvelous writer of historical fiction. One of the things I most admire about her books is the way she carefully researches them and the way she rescues real-life characters from the past and sheds light on their lives. She is quite skilled and adept at this. I hope she will return to that genre. This experiment outside the box was a true failure for me.
February 26, 2014
This novel does what good science fiction should do: it makes the reader think about how the current problems may affect the future. Nadia is trapped in a near-future dictatorial society where food and water are scarce and people are tuned to reality-like tv programming. The novel is chockfull of odd and interesting characters and thoughtful ruminations.
April 19, 2014
What makes this a 5 star for me? It was so engaging that I came out of my reading disoriented, as if I had literally come from Jiles' world back into my own and had to get my bearings again. I love it when authors write as if their readers are intelligent. Jiles wrote with great detail, so that alien scenes came to life, but didn't feel the need to tell me everything tediously. Through all the depravity of the world in Lighthouse Island, human resilience shines though sometimes tentatively. My only criticism would be the believability of all the serendipitous connections between the Heroine, her lover and her family members.
July 18, 2013
**Note: This review is based on an advanced reader's copy**
If I were to suggest a better title for this book, it would be Padding, because that's what this book is, pages and pages of padding. I get that setting is important, but the majority of the words in this book are the same descriptions of the same dusty, forlorn streets of a continent-sized city populated by the same dusty, forlorn citizens. Maybe I'm old fashioned, but I believe that the plot of a book is more important than the setting, but the plot here takes a backseat to the endless walk the protagonist takes. A story about a walk is not necessarily a bad one, as long as it is a story about a walk, this is not such a story. It's a story about a dystopia that forgets the dystopia. It's a love story that never expresses love. It's a story about a journey that never reaches a destination. Really, it's a story about how much filler you can fit in a 400 page book (a lot). It's frustrating because I really was excited for this book. It should have been a mix of Harry Harrison's Make Room! Make Room! and Neal Stephenson's The Diamond Age, with a hint of Orwell's 1984, but alas, it wasn't any of those things. Instead it was about two people successfully navigating their completely broken society with a kind of false-competency that was no more convincing to me than a 10-year-old trying to convince a bouncer that he's over 21 but has a glandular problem. Meanwhile, the most interesting people and places get two or three paragraphs and then are gone for good, leaving me wishing that the book had been about them instead. There is a scene early in the book between the protagonist and her roommates that I loved. I would have read a book just about the three of them, but the roommates get less than an chapter in the entire book and then are rarely ever even mentioned again. What we are left with is forgotten plot points, convenient coincidences, and a radio station that is obsessed with reading 19th century Spanish novels.
Still, I was ready to give the book three stars for one thing and one thing only; it didn't end when I thought it would. A good ending can make a break a book, it can tie up loose ends, make previous events make sense, surprise you into embracing everything that has happened. I was worried the book would end on the sappiest note possible, but then, when it got to that point and I realized there was still about a quarter of the book left, I was thrilled. Unfortunately it traded one sappy ending for an even more sappy, deus ex machina-fest, ending.
Two stars, and that's mostly for having a good concept and for being readable, if not enjoyable.
If I were to suggest a better title for this book, it would be Padding, because that's what this book is, pages and pages of padding. I get that setting is important, but the majority of the words in this book are the same descriptions of the same dusty, forlorn streets of a continent-sized city populated by the same dusty, forlorn citizens. Maybe I'm old fashioned, but I believe that the plot of a book is more important than the setting, but the plot here takes a backseat to the endless walk the protagonist takes. A story about a walk is not necessarily a bad one, as long as it is a story about a walk, this is not such a story. It's a story about a dystopia that forgets the dystopia. It's a love story that never expresses love. It's a story about a journey that never reaches a destination. Really, it's a story about how much filler you can fit in a 400 page book (a lot). It's frustrating because I really was excited for this book. It should have been a mix of Harry Harrison's Make Room! Make Room! and Neal Stephenson's The Diamond Age, with a hint of Orwell's 1984, but alas, it wasn't any of those things. Instead it was about two people successfully navigating their completely broken society with a kind of false-competency that was no more convincing to me than a 10-year-old trying to convince a bouncer that he's over 21 but has a glandular problem. Meanwhile, the most interesting people and places get two or three paragraphs and then are gone for good, leaving me wishing that the book had been about them instead. There is a scene early in the book between the protagonist and her roommates that I loved. I would have read a book just about the three of them, but the roommates get less than an chapter in the entire book and then are rarely ever even mentioned again. What we are left with is forgotten plot points, convenient coincidences, and a radio station that is obsessed with reading 19th century Spanish novels.
Still, I was ready to give the book three stars for one thing and one thing only; it didn't end when I thought it would. A good ending can make a break a book, it can tie up loose ends, make previous events make sense, surprise you into embracing everything that has happened. I was worried the book would end on the sappiest note possible, but then, when it got to that point and I realized there was still about a quarter of the book left, I was thrilled. Unfortunately it traded one sappy ending for an even more sappy, deus ex machina-fest, ending.
Two stars, and that's mostly for having a good concept and for being readable, if not enjoyable.
March 29, 2021
This one is NOT for me, though the subject matter was attractive.
I can't read this, it has no quotation marks, there is no way to tell when someone is talking. This makes it feel like stream-of-consciousness and drives me up the wall.
For example, pg 17: The woman looked at the gold coins for a long moment. A new centrifuge. The one we have is hand cranked if you can believe that and the air seal is faulty. The woman put her hand on the coins. This is lunch. For, like five months or so. What do you do, doctor Orotov? I'm in Meteorology.
All of that. What is it? who is it? Is anyone taking or not? It drives me bonkers. Who thought this lack of punctuation was a good idea?
I can't read this, it has no quotation marks, there is no way to tell when someone is talking. This makes it feel like stream-of-consciousness and drives me up the wall.
For example, pg 17: The woman looked at the gold coins for a long moment. A new centrifuge. The one we have is hand cranked if you can believe that and the air seal is faulty. The woman put her hand on the coins. This is lunch. For, like five months or so. What do you do, doctor Orotov? I'm in Meteorology.
All of that. What is it? who is it? Is anyone taking or not? It drives me bonkers. Who thought this lack of punctuation was a good idea?
September 12, 2013
[Disclaimer: I received a copy of the ARC from the Goodreads Giveaways]
I'm giving this 2 stars instead of 3 because it was just okay for me. I didn't love it, I didn't hate it, I mostly just wanted to read it and be done with it. I had a major problem with the lack of quotation marks in the dialogue because I had a very hard time figuring out when a character was speaking and when the narration ended and became dialogue.
Style-wise, again, it was just okay. There was too much exposition, and it took way too long for anything to truly happen. There was also a continuity problem, when a character's death was clearly described, but later in the book he's still alive. I couldn't figure out if I had misread, or if this was an error that has been fixed in final publication, or if it was really supposed to be a plot twist (which I found poorly executed).
The ending dragged on too long. I have a problem when books end too suddenly, but this one should have ended about 70 pages before it did. It felt like the book had actually ended, and another book had started. Maybe it would have been better if that's what had happened - I kept saying to my husband, "It's like she's started the sequel and included the first 1/3 of the next book in this one without noting that it's another book." Introducing several new characters only that close to the end of the book seems pointless. Not that I want another series, but this seems like it should have been at least a duet. OR, she should have written more and made it just a longer book.
Since this doesn't come out until October, I have no way to tell if any of this was changed in the final version. But I don't see myself spending the money on the hardcover or even spending the extra time on re-reading the finished copy. It was an interesting idea, but I don't think it was fully successful.
I'm giving this 2 stars instead of 3 because it was just okay for me. I didn't love it, I didn't hate it, I mostly just wanted to read it and be done with it. I had a major problem with the lack of quotation marks in the dialogue because I had a very hard time figuring out when a character was speaking and when the narration ended and became dialogue.
Style-wise, again, it was just okay. There was too much exposition, and it took way too long for anything to truly happen. There was also a continuity problem, when a character's death was clearly described, but later in the book he's still alive. I couldn't figure out if I had misread, or if this was an error that has been fixed in final publication, or if it was really supposed to be a plot twist (which I found poorly executed).
The ending dragged on too long. I have a problem when books end too suddenly, but this one should have ended about 70 pages before it did. It felt like the book had actually ended, and another book had started. Maybe it would have been better if that's what had happened - I kept saying to my husband, "It's like she's started the sequel and included the first 1/3 of the next book in this one without noting that it's another book." Introducing several new characters only that close to the end of the book seems pointless. Not that I want another series, but this seems like it should have been at least a duet. OR, she should have written more and made it just a longer book.
Since this doesn't come out until October, I have no way to tell if any of this was changed in the final version. But I don't see myself spending the money on the hardcover or even spending the extra time on re-reading the finished copy. It was an interesting idea, but I don't think it was fully successful.
September 29, 2014
In this dystopian novel, the world's population has exploded, megacities have formed, borders have been erased, numbered years are a thing of the past, and what remains of the water supply is dirty and in short supply. It is in this world that Nadia Stepan was abandoned in the street by her parents when she was just four. During her time in orphanages, she hears of a place called Lighthouse Island, a place she believes to be like a paradise. Once out on her own, she is determined to find her way there.
I had a hard time deciding how many stars to give this one. For the most part, this novel is filled with padding; I'm not sure how many more ways it could have been impressed upon the reader that the world was dry, dirty, and overcrowded. However, all that padding is beautifully written; the author's background as a poet really came through. There were no quotation marks used in this book, which I found irksome, but eventually got used to it.
If you're looking for a story with lots of action and fast-pacing, this is not the book for you. However, if you don't mind a more literary take on the dystopian genre, you'll probably enjoy this one.
I had a hard time deciding how many stars to give this one. For the most part, this novel is filled with padding; I'm not sure how many more ways it could have been impressed upon the reader that the world was dry, dirty, and overcrowded. However, all that padding is beautifully written; the author's background as a poet really came through. There were no quotation marks used in this book, which I found irksome, but eventually got used to it.
If you're looking for a story with lots of action and fast-pacing, this is not the book for you. However, if you don't mind a more literary take on the dystopian genre, you'll probably enjoy this one.
July 12, 2013
Imagine a world in the future. A world that has become so densely populated that green spaces no longer exist. They are now the product of advertisements to work towards using the credits you earn in hopes of visiting a place that only exists far from where you live now. Cities have developed so much due to the over population of people that any space is used to build on. Animals have all died out due to disease or simply being hunted to extinction. Now only the wealthy and rich have a handful of animals. Water is the most precious of commodities. All the rivers have dried up because global warming and creation of cities have left the atmosphere and the ecosystem completely out of balance. It no longer rains. Since water is so precious, every single human has been allocated just one quart a day and most of the time, it's cloudy and yellow but still drinkable.
There are no longer a need for maps, data or numbers so calendars are now rendered obsolete. No one cares what year it is because the days have all begun to blur together as one anyways. The only technology that remains in virtually every location imaginable are televisions. They are the way in which communication between the agencies and the population exist. Depending on your skill set you might be able to climb your way up the corporate ladder and be able to move where water rationing isn't a concern and food is more readily available. Every night on the radio from an abandoned satellite a voice reads over and over the great classical books of the world. It is known simply as Big Radio.
The only hope that Nadia Stepan has growing up as an orphan is finding a way to escape to a place known simply as Lighthouse Island. A place where trees, oceans, and food is plentiful. It is only gifted to those that can afford it, but Nadia believes she can find a way to get there on her own. Not knowing how she will make the journey, she finds all her knowledge in the forms of books that most people have disregarded in lieu of television. She consumes them instead of watching the government run programming, mostly in part by her inability to see due to defect in her vision caused from a lack of Vitamin A. Now all she can do is simply read about places that used to exist. History books and technology books have been rendered obsolete since it doesn't matter what the current state of things are now. Resources can't be replicated to fix the things that were once used like ebooks and cell phones. Now most people resort to scavenging, work in the agencies or demolition. Now that water is so hard to come by and the pipes no longer have the pressure or electricity to run them, buildings larger than 4 stories are demolished. The people that live there are forced to find suitable housing some place else or are turned over to the prisons to work in labor camps.
I received Lighthouse Island by Paulette Jiles compliments of William Morrow, a division of Harper Collins Publishers for my honest review and received no monetary compensation for a favorable one. I love books like this one because it takes us into the possibility of where our own future may in fact be headed. If population increases so exponentially will the earth be able to sustain itself or will the possibilities like what are featured in this book become a reality? I thoroughly enjoyed this one and can't wait to read more novel from Paulette Jiles. This was a first for me. She literally took me into a future world where I was living alongside Nadia and one I which I truly felt was real. I could relate to Nadia character being a huge book lover myself. It was such an incredible journey and one I couldn't put down until I finished the last page. I rate this one a 4.5 out of 5 stars and this book is now available for preorder since it is due out in October of this year. This is one you won't want to miss!
There are no longer a need for maps, data or numbers so calendars are now rendered obsolete. No one cares what year it is because the days have all begun to blur together as one anyways. The only technology that remains in virtually every location imaginable are televisions. They are the way in which communication between the agencies and the population exist. Depending on your skill set you might be able to climb your way up the corporate ladder and be able to move where water rationing isn't a concern and food is more readily available. Every night on the radio from an abandoned satellite a voice reads over and over the great classical books of the world. It is known simply as Big Radio.
The only hope that Nadia Stepan has growing up as an orphan is finding a way to escape to a place known simply as Lighthouse Island. A place where trees, oceans, and food is plentiful. It is only gifted to those that can afford it, but Nadia believes she can find a way to get there on her own. Not knowing how she will make the journey, she finds all her knowledge in the forms of books that most people have disregarded in lieu of television. She consumes them instead of watching the government run programming, mostly in part by her inability to see due to defect in her vision caused from a lack of Vitamin A. Now all she can do is simply read about places that used to exist. History books and technology books have been rendered obsolete since it doesn't matter what the current state of things are now. Resources can't be replicated to fix the things that were once used like ebooks and cell phones. Now most people resort to scavenging, work in the agencies or demolition. Now that water is so hard to come by and the pipes no longer have the pressure or electricity to run them, buildings larger than 4 stories are demolished. The people that live there are forced to find suitable housing some place else or are turned over to the prisons to work in labor camps.
I received Lighthouse Island by Paulette Jiles compliments of William Morrow, a division of Harper Collins Publishers for my honest review and received no monetary compensation for a favorable one. I love books like this one because it takes us into the possibility of where our own future may in fact be headed. If population increases so exponentially will the earth be able to sustain itself or will the possibilities like what are featured in this book become a reality? I thoroughly enjoyed this one and can't wait to read more novel from Paulette Jiles. This was a first for me. She literally took me into a future world where I was living alongside Nadia and one I which I truly felt was real. I could relate to Nadia character being a huge book lover myself. It was such an incredible journey and one I couldn't put down until I finished the last page. I rate this one a 4.5 out of 5 stars and this book is now available for preorder since it is due out in October of this year. This is one you won't want to miss!
January 29, 2016
I obtained an ARC of LIGHTHOUSE ISLAND through a Goodreads giveaway -- thanks Goodreads and HarperCollins!
Paulette Jiles describes herself as a "poet and memoirist", and I think her skills really rang through quite beautifully in LIGHTHOUSE ISLAND. I found myself underlining the most beautifully constructed passages, and running out of ink in the first few chapters.
The plot, however, was not nearly as gripping as the writing. Nadia is a nearly-blind orphan living in a dystopia set about 150 years into the future. The earth is going through a major drought, and forests and greenery no longer exist. Water is considered the most precious economic resource. Most people numb the pain of their daily lives by watching hours of television, but Nadia seeks solace in the books and stories of long forgotten novels.
When she hears an advertisement for the luxury vacation spot, Lighthouse Island, she sets out on a mission to escape to the fabled Pacific Northwest and see Lighthouse Island for herself. Along the way she meets crippled demolitionist James Orotov, who joins her on her quest and they shape the courses of each other's lives in unexpected ways.
Despite the writing being so beautiful, the book feels overlong at nearly 400 pages. The descriptions are well-done, but repetitive, and the it's almost difficult to find real plot movement between the scenery of description
Perhaps due to Jiles's memoirist writing background, the writing comes off as detached from the lives of the characters. I felt like I was seeing Nadia through a distant, murky glass rather than through her mind's eye.
I think the book will be very successful for fans of dystopia, Orwell, etc., but I really do wish I had felt more connected to the story and characters. I think I will pick it up again in a few months and see if I feel more empathetic towards the characters then.
Paulette Jiles describes herself as a "poet and memoirist", and I think her skills really rang through quite beautifully in LIGHTHOUSE ISLAND. I found myself underlining the most beautifully constructed passages, and running out of ink in the first few chapters.
The plot, however, was not nearly as gripping as the writing. Nadia is a nearly-blind orphan living in a dystopia set about 150 years into the future. The earth is going through a major drought, and forests and greenery no longer exist. Water is considered the most precious economic resource. Most people numb the pain of their daily lives by watching hours of television, but Nadia seeks solace in the books and stories of long forgotten novels.
When she hears an advertisement for the luxury vacation spot, Lighthouse Island, she sets out on a mission to escape to the fabled Pacific Northwest and see Lighthouse Island for herself. Along the way she meets crippled demolitionist James Orotov, who joins her on her quest and they shape the courses of each other's lives in unexpected ways.
Despite the writing being so beautiful, the book feels overlong at nearly 400 pages. The descriptions are well-done, but repetitive, and the it's almost difficult to find real plot movement between the scenery of description
Perhaps due to Jiles's memoirist writing background, the writing comes off as detached from the lives of the characters. I felt like I was seeing Nadia through a distant, murky glass rather than through her mind's eye.
I think the book will be very successful for fans of dystopia, Orwell, etc., but I really do wish I had felt more connected to the story and characters. I think I will pick it up again in a few months and see if I feel more empathetic towards the characters then.
June 28, 2015
I decided to bump up my rating of this book to 5 stars. Ever since I read it, I've been unable to get this story out of my mind. It reminds me a lot of the Pulitzer-Prize winning "All the Light We Cannot See." There's a blind girl, big Radio, a dystopian setting that is very similar to Nazi Germany and gorgeous prose. (No surprise that Paulette Jiles is a poet.)
In this future world, the population has exploded and the United States is an endless city. There are very few animals left, and drought plagues the land. Nadia Stepan, abandoned by her parents when she was 4 year-old, dreams of Lighthouse Island, a vacation spot where she believes her long-lost parents may be.
Nadia grows up reading old and neglected books. She meets James Orotov, a mapmaker and demolitions expert who is confined to a wheelchair due to an accident. Together they make a plan to escape to Lighthouse Island. Nadia is a very crafty and intelligent heroine. She is pursued as she tries to escape across the country and at one time is picked up and incarcerated in an "assisted living facility" (prison). James is facing a forced amputation of his legs by the government to get him out of his wheelchair and into prosthetics.
The only complaint I have about the book is some of the very fortunate coincidences that Nadia and James encounter on their escape across country, but it is a minor complaint.
This is the best book I've read so far this year. (And I read a lot!)
In this future world, the population has exploded and the United States is an endless city. There are very few animals left, and drought plagues the land. Nadia Stepan, abandoned by her parents when she was 4 year-old, dreams of Lighthouse Island, a vacation spot where she believes her long-lost parents may be.
Nadia grows up reading old and neglected books. She meets James Orotov, a mapmaker and demolitions expert who is confined to a wheelchair due to an accident. Together they make a plan to escape to Lighthouse Island. Nadia is a very crafty and intelligent heroine. She is pursued as she tries to escape across the country and at one time is picked up and incarcerated in an "assisted living facility" (prison). James is facing a forced amputation of his legs by the government to get him out of his wheelchair and into prosthetics.
The only complaint I have about the book is some of the very fortunate coincidences that Nadia and James encounter on their escape across country, but it is a minor complaint.
This is the best book I've read so far this year. (And I read a lot!)
June 17, 2013
How I Came To Read This Book: I got a digital ARC from Edelweiss.
The Plot: The book is set approximately 150 years into the future from where we are right now. The earth is going through a major drought period, and a dystopian world where water is the most precious commodity, people are glued to their television sets, state lines are blurred through a neverending expanse of city and the poor are severely limited by the mighty is the reality that Raisa is abandoned in, when her parents desert her on a busy city street in the opening chapter. From there, Raisa becomes Nadia Stepan, a nearly-blind orphaned girl with a passion for reading old books and a knack for thinking on her feet and hustling her way through life. After an ill-advised affair with a coworker, Nadia becomes a target for elimination, prompting her to set off on a quest to freedom, to a place called Lighthouse Island. Along the way, she meets a wheelchair-bound bureaucrat named James, who provides her advice and help to get her (and hopefully him) on their way.
The Good & The Bad: So the majority of this book is actually quite easily a four-star, sometimes even five-star read. The very beginning is quite disorienting because Raisa / Nadia offers very little context for the world she lives in (as a matter of fact, you only discover the approximate year about ¾ of the way through the book), and the final ten chapters or so are quite meandering and plodding from the rest of the book, leading to a somewhat disappointing ending. But everything in between? Stellar. Nadia’s combination of cleverness and human stupidity makes for a riveting journey as you hold your breath during tense moments and eagerly move to the next chapter to see if this is an escape or a capture, and by what means in either case.
I feel like this is one of the books that’s layered with meaning, and I’ve said it before – reading them on your own, without the analysis of say, a University classroom or even a book club, I’m sure a ton of it was lost on me. The story is not just plot-driven, it’s definitely a commentary on some of our societal hang-ups (that are exacerbated in this vision of the future), and I’m sure there’s all kinds of significance in relation to Nadia’s blindness, James’ crippled state, and the animals that Nadia imagines are calling out to her throughout the story. And as for the ending, well, I’m sure there’s some meaning as to why it ends where it does, in the way it does, but it just felt a little trite in comparison to the rest of the story. In fact I was flabbergasted as my Kobo counted down how many pages I had left, how the book could possibly be finished at that point.
The good news is, unlike other literary fiction books, this one is still very readable and interesting. Although I wish the ending had shed more light on the world that’s set up in the earliest pages, and that the discovery of what the Lighthouse contains was a more significant plot point, I was still more or less satisfied and interested for about 85% of the book. The world that Jiles creates is interesting, recognizable, and frightening – I described it to many people as what 1984 would look like if it were written in the context of today’s world. It’s that good (most of it). Actually, 1984 meets Children of Men.
The Bottom Line: A remarkably conceived book that takes a while to ramp up before hooking you...but with perhaps, too soft of an ending.
Anything Memorable?: Me reading this book will be immortalized on film! In theory. I was reading it over the weekend of my sister’s wedding, including getting my hair done, which was apparently fascinating to the photography and videography folks.
60-Book Challenge?: Book #27 in 2013
The Plot: The book is set approximately 150 years into the future from where we are right now. The earth is going through a major drought period, and a dystopian world where water is the most precious commodity, people are glued to their television sets, state lines are blurred through a neverending expanse of city and the poor are severely limited by the mighty is the reality that Raisa is abandoned in, when her parents desert her on a busy city street in the opening chapter. From there, Raisa becomes Nadia Stepan, a nearly-blind orphaned girl with a passion for reading old books and a knack for thinking on her feet and hustling her way through life. After an ill-advised affair with a coworker, Nadia becomes a target for elimination, prompting her to set off on a quest to freedom, to a place called Lighthouse Island. Along the way, she meets a wheelchair-bound bureaucrat named James, who provides her advice and help to get her (and hopefully him) on their way.
The Good & The Bad: So the majority of this book is actually quite easily a four-star, sometimes even five-star read. The very beginning is quite disorienting because Raisa / Nadia offers very little context for the world she lives in (as a matter of fact, you only discover the approximate year about ¾ of the way through the book), and the final ten chapters or so are quite meandering and plodding from the rest of the book, leading to a somewhat disappointing ending. But everything in between? Stellar. Nadia’s combination of cleverness and human stupidity makes for a riveting journey as you hold your breath during tense moments and eagerly move to the next chapter to see if this is an escape or a capture, and by what means in either case.
I feel like this is one of the books that’s layered with meaning, and I’ve said it before – reading them on your own, without the analysis of say, a University classroom or even a book club, I’m sure a ton of it was lost on me. The story is not just plot-driven, it’s definitely a commentary on some of our societal hang-ups (that are exacerbated in this vision of the future), and I’m sure there’s all kinds of significance in relation to Nadia’s blindness, James’ crippled state, and the animals that Nadia imagines are calling out to her throughout the story. And as for the ending, well, I’m sure there’s some meaning as to why it ends where it does, in the way it does, but it just felt a little trite in comparison to the rest of the story. In fact I was flabbergasted as my Kobo counted down how many pages I had left, how the book could possibly be finished at that point.
The good news is, unlike other literary fiction books, this one is still very readable and interesting. Although I wish the ending had shed more light on the world that’s set up in the earliest pages, and that the discovery of what the Lighthouse contains was a more significant plot point, I was still more or less satisfied and interested for about 85% of the book. The world that Jiles creates is interesting, recognizable, and frightening – I described it to many people as what 1984 would look like if it were written in the context of today’s world. It’s that good (most of it). Actually, 1984 meets Children of Men.
The Bottom Line: A remarkably conceived book that takes a while to ramp up before hooking you...but with perhaps, too soft of an ending.
Anything Memorable?: Me reading this book will be immortalized on film! In theory. I was reading it over the weekend of my sister’s wedding, including getting my hair done, which was apparently fascinating to the photography and videography folks.
60-Book Challenge?: Book #27 in 2013
February 19, 2014
Paulette Jiles paints a rich view of a bleak picture of life in our possible future.
Couple unlimited human population growth with decreasing water supplies, and you get a world where in most cases there is not enough water pressure to reach higher than 4 stories. This ,means that cities can no longer build up, they have to build out. Urban centers sprawl and merge. Mega-mega cities are the result. Rivers, lakes, aquifers, and groundwater are consumed. There are no longer any natural or wild lands, the vast majority of animals are gone, and existence of the common person is relegated to a day-to-day existence including a small water ration, a menial job, and fear of being accused of breaking constantly changing laws. Even accusation is enough to get someone shipped off to work to death in the catcus or soy fields - the bottom of the barrel.
So what gives these people hope, or at least relief from the daily grind? Television. Everyone has television - to me it sounded "Fahrenheit 451-esque", except there are no firemen. People are placated by endlessly streaming, mind-numbing programming and commercials advertising vacations to places like "Lighthouse Island"...a real enough place, but impossible to afford and physically impossible for the everyday person to reach.
This world is navigated by the main character of the book...abandoned as a young child, blinded by malnutrition, and largely anti-social - she reads. She scavenges books wherever she can. She reads everything, she memorizes vast amounts of material, and she clings to the thin thread of hope that someday she will be able to find her parents at "Lighthouse Island."
The landscape is barren, but the writing is rich. The character development is fantastic and drives this piece of sci-fi literature. It doesn't need aliens, wars, or monsters to keep going...I was pulled along just by seeing what the main character, Nadia, was going to do next. Join in and see what she can manage by bravado and sheer nerve alone. Then she meets a kindred spirit in a wheelchair. A member of the upper class, a person with connections, formal education, with position. Then what? You'll have to read for yourself.
The tone and tale of this story are both dark-chocolate rich. The author, Jiles, does not rely on foul language or cheap literary devices to more the story, her characters do that flawlessly for her.
5 stars
Couple unlimited human population growth with decreasing water supplies, and you get a world where in most cases there is not enough water pressure to reach higher than 4 stories. This ,means that cities can no longer build up, they have to build out. Urban centers sprawl and merge. Mega-mega cities are the result. Rivers, lakes, aquifers, and groundwater are consumed. There are no longer any natural or wild lands, the vast majority of animals are gone, and existence of the common person is relegated to a day-to-day existence including a small water ration, a menial job, and fear of being accused of breaking constantly changing laws. Even accusation is enough to get someone shipped off to work to death in the catcus or soy fields - the bottom of the barrel.
So what gives these people hope, or at least relief from the daily grind? Television. Everyone has television - to me it sounded "Fahrenheit 451-esque", except there are no firemen. People are placated by endlessly streaming, mind-numbing programming and commercials advertising vacations to places like "Lighthouse Island"...a real enough place, but impossible to afford and physically impossible for the everyday person to reach.
This world is navigated by the main character of the book...abandoned as a young child, blinded by malnutrition, and largely anti-social - she reads. She scavenges books wherever she can. She reads everything, she memorizes vast amounts of material, and she clings to the thin thread of hope that someday she will be able to find her parents at "Lighthouse Island."
The landscape is barren, but the writing is rich. The character development is fantastic and drives this piece of sci-fi literature. It doesn't need aliens, wars, or monsters to keep going...I was pulled along just by seeing what the main character, Nadia, was going to do next. Join in and see what she can manage by bravado and sheer nerve alone. Then she meets a kindred spirit in a wheelchair. A member of the upper class, a person with connections, formal education, with position. Then what? You'll have to read for yourself.
The tone and tale of this story are both dark-chocolate rich. The author, Jiles, does not rely on foul language or cheap literary devices to more the story, her characters do that flawlessly for her.
5 stars
September 14, 2013
This story was intriguing and frightening at the same time for me. You're immediately pulled into a world that could possibly be a glimpse of our future. Water shortages, drought, extinction, government issues all play a role in this eye-opening thriller. The writing style was very different from what I'm used to, but it worked well with the story as a whole.
Nadia was a girl after my own heart, I say this because her character loves to read books. This is the main reason for her character's drive and passion to find out about her past, and wanting to find her own place to belong. Lighthouse Island is the destination that Nadia's character is trying to reach throughout the story, along the way Nadia meets a few strange "characters" that add substance and depth to the story. I liked the concept of this story, and It really made me think about a lot of things that we take for granted everyday. I loved the author's descriptions of Nadia's world, and the fact that you could see yourself in her position, and dealing with the same problems.
I enjoyed the way the author draws you in from the very beginning and takes you on a journey you will never forget. There we're a handful of errors that kept jumping out at me as I read, but It didn't take away from the story at all. I gave this book 4.5 stars and will be recommending to a few friends.
Nadia was a girl after my own heart, I say this because her character loves to read books. This is the main reason for her character's drive and passion to find out about her past, and wanting to find her own place to belong. Lighthouse Island is the destination that Nadia's character is trying to reach throughout the story, along the way Nadia meets a few strange "characters" that add substance and depth to the story. I liked the concept of this story, and It really made me think about a lot of things that we take for granted everyday. I loved the author's descriptions of Nadia's world, and the fact that you could see yourself in her position, and dealing with the same problems.
I enjoyed the way the author draws you in from the very beginning and takes you on a journey you will never forget. There we're a handful of errors that kept jumping out at me as I read, but It didn't take away from the story at all. I gave this book 4.5 stars and will be recommending to a few friends.
February 12, 2019
This is a hard one to rate, because while i enjoyed the concept, the world-building and the quest-like narrative, the romance was stilted, the dialogue tags drove me bonkers, and the last quarter was boring and all tension had dissipated. It's more of a 2.5/5 than a 3.
More in depth, I really liked the world. A massive urban sprawl with no resources and a bureaucratic fascist state. The government agents and propaganda were wonderfully corrupt and menacing. I loved Nadia's journey through the different zones and the different people she meets. I'm very fond of quest stories that follow an ambling narrative in this style. I also enjoyed the writing style (aside from the lack of dialogue tags), as I found it lyrical and poetic, albeit sometimes a little overblown.
Yet, Nadia's character wasn't consistent, I felt disconnected from her, and as soon as James came into the picture she turned into this fairly useless side character. While Nadia had a tough upbringing and her purpose for heading to the Lighthouse was more of as an escape from persecution, James' rationale was flimsy at best. And their love story was such a let down. All he does is give her information but all of sudden they are in love and thinking about one another all the time? And as soon as they get together, James is clearly established as this knowledgeable, almost paternal figure where she is this lost little girl he has to save. Which makes no sense, because she proved herself to be competent and resourceful the entire time. So, that was ... weird. There was also a huge coincidence that was so incredibly unbelievable given the population numbers.
The last quarter was also frustrating, because if felt almost tacked on. And there is a very very brief introduction to five new characters that seemed to come out of nowhere. In truth, it felt like a bit of cop-out. If their story had been interspersed throughout the rest of the novel it might have worked, but as it stands now, it feels random.
There were also a few things I found were anachronistic to something supposedly 100 years in the future. Genders roles and the complete lack of LGBT characters. Forced marriage. There were other things as well but I didn't take notes.
Overall, an interesting novel that had its moments, but I wouldn't read it again.
More in depth, I really liked the world. A massive urban sprawl with no resources and a bureaucratic fascist state. The government agents and propaganda were wonderfully corrupt and menacing. I loved Nadia's journey through the different zones and the different people she meets. I'm very fond of quest stories that follow an ambling narrative in this style. I also enjoyed the writing style (aside from the lack of dialogue tags), as I found it lyrical and poetic, albeit sometimes a little overblown.
Yet, Nadia's character wasn't consistent, I felt disconnected from her, and as soon as James came into the picture she turned into this fairly useless side character. While Nadia had a tough upbringing and her purpose for heading to the Lighthouse was more of as an escape from persecution, James' rationale was flimsy at best. And their love story was such a let down. All he does is give her information but all of sudden they are in love and thinking about one another all the time? And as soon as they get together, James is clearly established as this knowledgeable, almost paternal figure where she is this lost little girl he has to save. Which makes no sense, because she proved herself to be competent and resourceful the entire time. So, that was ... weird. There was also a huge coincidence that was so incredibly unbelievable given the population numbers.
The last quarter was also frustrating, because if felt almost tacked on. And there is a very very brief introduction to five new characters that seemed to come out of nowhere. In truth, it felt like a bit of cop-out. If their story had been interspersed throughout the rest of the novel it might have worked, but as it stands now, it feels random.
There were also a few things I found were anachronistic to something supposedly 100 years in the future. Genders roles and the complete lack of LGBT characters. Forced marriage. There were other things as well but I didn't take notes.
Overall, an interesting novel that had its moments, but I wouldn't read it again.
July 23, 2017
4 stars just for the exceptional poetic language! Another dystopian novel, this time quite light and humorous thanks to the ever optimistic inventing young heroine. One of her names is Nadya which is short for Nadezhda ( hope) in Russian and she lives this meaning to the fullest. The book is full of Russian and Soviet references, from names and places to literature and history. Sometimes I feel our whole histort is neverending dystopian novel. At the moment lots of surrealism, every day gets weirder and stranger.
The book structured as part coming of age story, part adventure, with some very light romantic touches. The end of the narrative is quite muddled and falls flat after such a strong full steam forward motion. Apart from that the book is full of nuiance and subtle jokes, which makes the dark dystopian subject easier to digest.
The book structured as part coming of age story, part adventure, with some very light romantic touches. The end of the narrative is quite muddled and falls flat after such a strong full steam forward motion. Apart from that the book is full of nuiance and subtle jokes, which makes the dark dystopian subject easier to digest.
August 21, 2013
Thanks to a First Reads giveaway, I was able to receive an advanced copy of Lighthouse Island: A Novel. I enjoyed reading this book a lot. It took quite some time for me to get used to the writing style though. Soon after, I started to like the way it was written out. Overall I was pleased with this book. This was an interesting and different style of writing for me, but it was definitely worth the read.
June 16, 2015
Well, I tried. Made it through about 50 pages before I had to put it down. Really didn't like the writing style on this one. Maybe because it was written from the point of view of a youth? Maybe. I am not sure but it didn't capture my interest.
Sorry Dan, I know you enjoyed it.
Sorry Dan, I know you enjoyed it.
October 22, 2015
I am looking forward to reading this, but the premise of the book seems a little out there. I am interested to see how the author pulls this off! Should be a good book to check out...
August 30, 2020
Got about 100 pages in, but just wasn't feeling it enough to hang around for 300 more. Not bad, but just...not what I was looking for, I guess. Certainly not what I expected from the author of the outstanding News of the World; and so after I saw the number of 2-star reviews, I figured I could do better elsewhere.
Have said this before, but will say here again - apparently one of the first casualties of the apocalypse are quotation marks, because a surprising number of dystopian books don't use 'em - The Road, Ridley Walker, The Dog Stars and now this.
Have said this before, but will say here again - apparently one of the first casualties of the apocalypse are quotation marks, because a surprising number of dystopian books don't use 'em - The Road, Ridley Walker, The Dog Stars and now this.
April 17, 2022
I fell in love with Jiles's writing in News of the World, and set out to read more of her work. This is quite well written, but post-apocalypse is far from my favorite genre. The horrible future world painted here is 90% suffering to 10% love and happiness, and I found it hard to bear. It was fun to come across terms or phrases from famous poetry, tossed in in casual descriptions. But overall it was a gray, crowded, thirsty, totalitarian, unpleasant atmosphere I was glad to escape from.
November 9, 2021
I’m a huge Paulette Jiles fan and wanted to make sure I’ve read all her books. This one was a little challenging for me. It is science fiction and that’s not my favorite genre. It was an interesting dystopian world story, pretty dreary and depressing, but I got through it.
May 30, 2024
3.5 rounded up. I love her writing but the ending just didn’t ring true for me.
October 28, 2020
Well written, some good characterizations, however it's a very different genre from her other well known novels. I started with this one because I found it on special through Chirp. It's very dark and dystopian, depicting a future that extrapolates from all of our worst problems - climate change, overcrowding, etc. Given all the problems in this world, I really didn't enjoy immersing myself in that world.
January 2, 2016
It took me a long time and a lot of reflection before I could write this review. The book left me feeling unsure. I really wanted to like it—it had a lot of really good elements. However, it took me a while to determine what I thought of it.
The setting is really excellent. It’s the future. There is little water, and it has to be strictly rationed. The world has become overpopulated, cities expanding and expanding until they almost touch one another. America is now essentially one giant city. We don’t know what year it is; they stopped counting. Everything is now run by “agencies,” all under the control of the Facilitator (or is it?). Even the smallest of offences can lead to your “arrest,” which essentially means your disappearance. It’s all very Orwellian in the best way. One of the greatest things about it was as I was reading, I became increasingly uncomfortable realizing how all too possible this future was.
We’re introduced to the novel’s heroine when she is four years old and has been abandoned by her parents. She has a hard childhood and adolescence—even for someone growing up in this dystopia. However, for the most part, the story takes place when Nadia is an adult.
Nadia takes pleasure in her own little rebellions. These, however, slowly lead up to her own impending arrest. Nadia is alerted to the danger that awaits her, and takes off before she can be apprehended. She becomes a fugitive, and must lie and manipulate her way out of the megacity. The problem is, however, that she no longer has a valid ID card and when they stopped counting the years they also stopped calling places by name. How is she going to navigate her way? She has a notion in her head that she must get to a place called Lighthouse Island that she saw on TV. Somehow she believes that she will finally be reunited with her parents there. Along the way she meets James Orotov from Demolitions, an amateur cartographer. Their relationship grows in an odd way, but it is befitting of their world and circumstances.
Jiles’ writing is incredibly beautiful and thoughtful. I often found myself stopping to admire the prose and thinking, Man, this woman can write. When describing the world of the past which Nadia reads about in novels, there is one section that really stuck out to me. Jiles was describing the the freedom of those that came before Nadia—things they wouldn’t have even thought twice about:
There seemed to be no regulations on anything: the watts of lightbulbs, shoe sizes, and placing of television screens. They had no ration allowances. They owned cats and dogs without the permission of the Department of Livestock and Companion Animals. There were times and places where there were no people: at midnight, among mountains. It was a world of swimming pools and cybertheft and malls, lakes and pets and horses and cows, cowboys, free-running bison, marshes, rain, fog, pear trees, snow, sailing, ships, men in tights. They were spendthrift and wasteful and neurotic. They had devoured the world and left nothing but a dry husk for Nadia Stepan. (pg 41)
The style of the novel fit completely with it hopeless, flat, forlorn tone of the story. The lack of quotation marks, however, was a stylistic choice I understood, but didn’t enjoy. Although I could appreciate the beauty in Jiles’ story and her many stylistic choices, I didn’t always find myself connecting with them.
The characters are really interesting and complex…Unfortunately, I never felt like I really got to know them. I knew about them—their quirks, their talents, their likes, and dislikes—but I didn’t feel connected to them. For me, that is a key aspect in my enjoyment of a novel, and it was missing in this one. The characters seemed to be just curious people that I observed from a distance, only interested in their fate out of mere curiosity. I never felt emotionally involved in the story.
All told, this was a beautifully written novel set in a masterfully created world peopled with very interesting characters. It was quite lovely and thought-provoking. Without feeling connected to the characters and their fates, however, I found myself losing interest.
If you're looking for dystopian mind candy, this isn’t the novel for you. It’s nothing like the popular The Hunger Games or Divergent. It’s more akin to the stark and cerebral Nineteen Eighty-Four. If you like literary fiction though, it’s definitely worth a read.
The setting is really excellent. It’s the future. There is little water, and it has to be strictly rationed. The world has become overpopulated, cities expanding and expanding until they almost touch one another. America is now essentially one giant city. We don’t know what year it is; they stopped counting. Everything is now run by “agencies,” all under the control of the Facilitator (or is it?). Even the smallest of offences can lead to your “arrest,” which essentially means your disappearance. It’s all very Orwellian in the best way. One of the greatest things about it was as I was reading, I became increasingly uncomfortable realizing how all too possible this future was.
We’re introduced to the novel’s heroine when she is four years old and has been abandoned by her parents. She has a hard childhood and adolescence—even for someone growing up in this dystopia. However, for the most part, the story takes place when Nadia is an adult.
Nadia takes pleasure in her own little rebellions. These, however, slowly lead up to her own impending arrest. Nadia is alerted to the danger that awaits her, and takes off before she can be apprehended. She becomes a fugitive, and must lie and manipulate her way out of the megacity. The problem is, however, that she no longer has a valid ID card and when they stopped counting the years they also stopped calling places by name. How is she going to navigate her way? She has a notion in her head that she must get to a place called Lighthouse Island that she saw on TV. Somehow she believes that she will finally be reunited with her parents there. Along the way she meets James Orotov from Demolitions, an amateur cartographer. Their relationship grows in an odd way, but it is befitting of their world and circumstances.
Jiles’ writing is incredibly beautiful and thoughtful. I often found myself stopping to admire the prose and thinking, Man, this woman can write. When describing the world of the past which Nadia reads about in novels, there is one section that really stuck out to me. Jiles was describing the the freedom of those that came before Nadia—things they wouldn’t have even thought twice about:
There seemed to be no regulations on anything: the watts of lightbulbs, shoe sizes, and placing of television screens. They had no ration allowances. They owned cats and dogs without the permission of the Department of Livestock and Companion Animals. There were times and places where there were no people: at midnight, among mountains. It was a world of swimming pools and cybertheft and malls, lakes and pets and horses and cows, cowboys, free-running bison, marshes, rain, fog, pear trees, snow, sailing, ships, men in tights. They were spendthrift and wasteful and neurotic. They had devoured the world and left nothing but a dry husk for Nadia Stepan. (pg 41)
The style of the novel fit completely with it hopeless, flat, forlorn tone of the story. The lack of quotation marks, however, was a stylistic choice I understood, but didn’t enjoy. Although I could appreciate the beauty in Jiles’ story and her many stylistic choices, I didn’t always find myself connecting with them.
The characters are really interesting and complex…Unfortunately, I never felt like I really got to know them. I knew about them—their quirks, their talents, their likes, and dislikes—but I didn’t feel connected to them. For me, that is a key aspect in my enjoyment of a novel, and it was missing in this one. The characters seemed to be just curious people that I observed from a distance, only interested in their fate out of mere curiosity. I never felt emotionally involved in the story.
All told, this was a beautifully written novel set in a masterfully created world peopled with very interesting characters. It was quite lovely and thought-provoking. Without feeling connected to the characters and their fates, however, I found myself losing interest.
If you're looking for dystopian mind candy, this isn’t the novel for you. It’s nothing like the popular The Hunger Games or Divergent. It’s more akin to the stark and cerebral Nineteen Eighty-Four. If you like literary fiction though, it’s definitely worth a read.
April 16, 2024
Lighthouse Island is not the riveting story that I've come to expect from Paulette Jiles. The writing felt stand-offish,remote and a lack of quotation punctuation did nothing to make reading any easier. It's starts off as a world so dry people are rationed dingey water by the pint and partway into the book,there are devastating floods. There are so many clichés, innocents who are cagey clever, total hateful evil,the dumb masses helpless before bureaucrats, bureaucrats turning on itself... I could barely slog through the ending.
August 3, 2020
I could not put it down and hated for it to end. One of the best dystopia novels I've read; it's not just about a environmentally devastated and socially fractured future - it's a study in love and faith, in character and intelligence, in passion and courage, in adaptability and despair. Jiles is not a prolific writer, but what she lacks in quantity she makes up for in quality. Her language is always rich and clear, drawing you into her stories. Every word a carefully considered gem and placed just so to create a literary event. Her characters are real and alive with thought and feeling. She plumbs the depths of matters relative to life and humanity. She is truly one the best contemporary authors alive today.
November 7, 2021
Yes,it does seem derivative. Also, chaotic and non sensical, just doesn’t hold together. I liked the references to other literature. Ridley Walker!
October 14, 2013
As someone who loves speculative and dystopian fiction, I was pretty excited to read Lighthouse Island by Paulette Jiles. I know that this genre is rather popular within the YA category, but I prefer more in depth world building, back story and character development. Jiles does not skimp on the character development or world building in her novel.
In the future, the planet’s population has outgrown its resources and water is a scarce commodity. The amount of water a person receives correlates to their socioeconomic standing. The earth is dusty from drought. Cities, now called Gerrymanders, have taken over the countryside and are so large and overcrowded. No one is allowed to use the old names for these forgotten cities and states. Everyone is kept quiet and passive by government produced television shows.
As an orphan, Nadia is close to bottom of the social totem pole. As a child, she dreams of finding a green vacation spot called Lighthouse Island. She secretly carries this yearning as she works meaningless, paper pushing jobs. Until she meets James, a mapmaker and a demolition expert. He’s well connected with plenty of funds to help plan their escape to Lighthouse Island.
First of all, Jiles does an amazing job creating her barren, dusty dystopian Earth. After reading a few chapters, my mouth feels parched with thirst, just like Nadia. In this future, most people do not have access to books, except what is read to them on the government controlled radio programs. Because of their bleak situations and government controls, no one is realizes that they are allowed to dream of bigger and better things. Except Nadia. She realizes that is more to life that what she is currently doing.
Read the rest of the review here: http://www.fromlefttowrite.com/book-r...
In the future, the planet’s population has outgrown its resources and water is a scarce commodity. The amount of water a person receives correlates to their socioeconomic standing. The earth is dusty from drought. Cities, now called Gerrymanders, have taken over the countryside and are so large and overcrowded. No one is allowed to use the old names for these forgotten cities and states. Everyone is kept quiet and passive by government produced television shows.
As an orphan, Nadia is close to bottom of the social totem pole. As a child, she dreams of finding a green vacation spot called Lighthouse Island. She secretly carries this yearning as she works meaningless, paper pushing jobs. Until she meets James, a mapmaker and a demolition expert. He’s well connected with plenty of funds to help plan their escape to Lighthouse Island.
First of all, Jiles does an amazing job creating her barren, dusty dystopian Earth. After reading a few chapters, my mouth feels parched with thirst, just like Nadia. In this future, most people do not have access to books, except what is read to them on the government controlled radio programs. Because of their bleak situations and government controls, no one is realizes that they are allowed to dream of bigger and better things. Except Nadia. She realizes that is more to life that what she is currently doing.
Read the rest of the review here: http://www.fromlefttowrite.com/book-r...
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