Book Review: The Light Between Oceans

(Warning: This blog post and the book it mentions discusses themes around miscarriage and loss of children. It could be a trigger to some.)

Sometimes, I think readers are like drug addicts. We learn to read, fall in love with a book, and spend the rest of our reading lives searching for another perfect book – one that grips us and sucks us in – one that we can’t turn the pages fast enough. It is this reading high that continually brings us back to literature; We love the language and we love that it can take us over so completely.

The Light Between Oceans by M.L. Stedman was one of those books for me. I did not want to put the book down. The novel is about Tom, a soldier-turned-lightkeeper, and his new bride Isabel. Together they live in a completely isolated world – an island to share only with a lighthouse. And there, they dream big dreams of family and togetherness and children running through their house and exploring their island…

Dreams that are ultimately unfulfilled, fabricated, and finally dashed.

Instead of being on an island of hope and light, Isabel finds herself isolated while she loses pregnancy after pregnancy. “Isabel recalled how she had been struck by the emptiness of this place, like a blank canvas, when she first arrived.” (Chapter 9). She suffers two miscarriages and one stillbirth. Suddenly the island around her becomes as empty and as her womb and it amplifies her loneliness as her husband tries to understand how to relate to her.

Not surprisingly, this novel spoke to me because it explores themes of motherhood. Perhaps more intimate than that, it also delves into the world of loss. As a mother who has experienced multiple miscarriages myself, the language in this book spoke to the very feelings that I have forever found difficult to express. The incredible thing is that I am not alone. Many women experience the loss of a child and yet we keep these stories to ourselves, thinking that we are shielding others from the pain when really we are simply isolating ourselves in shame.

“Of course, the losing of children had always been a thing that had to be gone through. There had never been guarantee that conceptions would lead to a live birth, or that birth would lead to a life of any great length.” (Chapter 2)

As each character is revealed, the reader begins to realize that although loss is isolating, we are not alone in that grief. Each character is experiencing their own personal story of loss. Tom’s experience of war colours his thoughts with painful memories and shame. He refuses to share that part of him with Isabel because he doesn’t want to introduce her to that horror. Somewhere in his unconscious however, he realizes that she is dealing with her own personal war. “And he wondered about the despair of the man, destroyed by grief. It didn’t take a war to push you over that edge.” (Chapter 5).

As stories develop away from these two central characters, that loss is still present. Parents have lost children in the war. A mother loses her baby daughter and husband to the ocean one night. A police officer had a toddler son who died twenty years ago.

“Sergeant Knuckey sat at his desk, tapping his pencil on his blotter, watching the tiny lead trails. Poor bloody woman. Who could blame her for wanting the baby to be alive? His Irene still cried sometimes about young Billy, and it had been twenty years since he’d drowned as a tot. They’d had five more kids since then, but it was never far away, the sadness.” (Chapter 16)

Everywhere there is grief. Everywhere people are suffering in silence. Everywhere people are awash in guilt and shame, not realizing that they are not, in fact, suffering in isolation. “That’s how life goes on – protected by the silence that anesthetizes shame.” (Chapter 17).

As a lightkeeper, Tom records everything that takes place on the island and in the surrounding ocean. “On the Lights, you account for every single day. You write up the log, you report what’s happened, you produce evidence that life goes on.” (Chapter 6). In the same way, The Light Between Oceans is a similar log. It reminds us that things happen – to all of us. We experience loss and grief and fabricated shame. Although it might feel isolating, we are not alone. And together, we can bare witness to our grief and realize that life goes on.

“To make sense of it – that’s the challenge. To bear witness to the death, without being broken by the weight of it.” (Chapter 6).

I loved this book. The writing is stunning, the story is beautiful and the themes are haunting. Although I feel like it speaks to the heart of a mother, especially a mother who has experienced loss, this tale can undoubtedly touch all walks of life because we, as humans, are intimately acquainted with loss and grief.

I give this book a solid 5 out of 5. If you haven’t read this book yet, you should definitely make it your next read.

Join us tonight (April 24th) at 9pm Eastern for a MomsReading book club discussion of The Light Between Oceans. Discussion will be taking place on Facebook. Make sure you Like MomsReading to participate!

If you want to participate in MomsReading next month, we are reading Let’s Pretend This Never Happened: (A Mostly True Memoir) by Jenny Lawson. We will be discussing this on May 29th.

Tune in to our book club discussion tonight to hear the announcement of the book we will be reading in June. (Or, check out the MomsReading webpage tomorrow for the details)

Did you read The Light Between Oceans? I’d love to read your review! Link up below and grab the button (or link back here) so that others can join us!

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Make sure you check out these reviews too:

My Life in the Sun | Book Review: The Light Between Oceans by M.L. Stedman

Mommy Baby Bliss | The Light Between Oceans: A Non-Book Review