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Cold Light
I'm sitting on my couch, watching the local news. There's Chloe's parents, the mayor, the hangers on, all grouped round the pond for the ceremony. It's ten years since Chloe and Carl drowned, and they've finally chosen a memorial-a stupid summerhouse. The mayor has a spade decked out in pink and white ribbon, and he's started to dig.
You can tell from their faces that something has gone wrong. But I'm the one who knows straightaway that the mayor has found a body. And I know who it is.
This is the tale of two fourteen-year-old girls, best friends, and one terrible summer when lies, secrets, jealousy, and perversion ended in tragedy more tangled and evil than a tight-knit community can possibly believe.
A dark tale with a surreal edge, Jenn Ashworth's gripping novel captures the intensity of girls' friendships and the dangers of a predatory adult world they are just grown up enough to think they can handle. And it shows just how far that world will go, sacrificing truth in the name of innocence.
You can tell from their faces that something has gone wrong. But I'm the one who knows straightaway that the mayor has found a body. And I know who it is.
This is the tale of two fourteen-year-old girls, best friends, and one terrible summer when lies, secrets, jealousy, and perversion ended in tragedy more tangled and evil than a tight-knit community can possibly believe.
A dark tale with a surreal edge, Jenn Ashworth's gripping novel captures the intensity of girls' friendships and the dangers of a predatory adult world they are just grown up enough to think they can handle. And it shows just how far that world will go, sacrificing truth in the name of innocence.
352 pages, Paperback
First published April 1, 2011
43 people are currently reading
2045 people want to read
About the author
Jenn Ashworth
37 books172 followersJenn Ashworth is an English writer. She was born in 1982 in Preston, Lancashire. She has graduated from Cambridge University and the Manchester Centre for New Writing. In March 2011 she was featured as one of the BBC Culture Show's Best 12 New Novelists. She previously worked as a librarian in a men's prison.
She founded the Preston Writers Network, later renamed as the Central Lancs Writing Hub, and worked as its coordinator until it closed in January 2010. She has also taught creative writing at the Centre for New Writing at the University of Manchester, the University of Central Lancashire and the University of Lancaster.
Her first novel, A Kind of Intimacy, won a Betty Trask Award in 2010. An extract from an earlier novel, lost as a result of a computer theft in 2004, was the winner of the 2003 Quiller-Couch Prize for Creative Writing at Cambridge University.
She founded the Preston Writers Network, later renamed as the Central Lancs Writing Hub, and worked as its coordinator until it closed in January 2010. She has also taught creative writing at the Centre for New Writing at the University of Manchester, the University of Central Lancashire and the University of Lancaster.
Her first novel, A Kind of Intimacy, won a Betty Trask Award in 2010. An extract from an earlier novel, lost as a result of a computer theft in 2004, was the winner of the 2003 Quiller-Couch Prize for Creative Writing at Cambridge University.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 233 reviews
May 20, 2021
the more i think about this book, the less i like it. and now i have put off writing the review for four days, and i don't even care...
it started off really strong for me, with a great premise, but i was a bit let down by the ending. and by ending, i mean the last 100 pages, pretty much.
see- here's the thing - i got up to page 62, and i forgot this thing at home. it was devastating. i had nothing to read on the subway going in to work, and had to actually look at people. it was the worst. so i borrowed a book at work, and read it and then returned to this book the next day. so maybe my momentum was broken, maybe i was just angry that it had let itself be forgotten so easily, maybe maybe maybe. but maybe i just didn't like it very much.
i think a lot of it boils down to character. i am fine with unlikeable characters. i am fine with unreliable characters. i am not fine with implausible characters - characters who have something happen to them in their youth and then spend the rest of their lives stuck in amber because of it. come on - you must have done something in that time! no? nothing?
this is about a twenty-four year old woman who lost her best friend to an apparent suicide-pact with her much older boyfriend when they are both fourteen. their relationship had been one based on an uneven power struggle from the outset - lola is shy and poor, with parents older than most; a long-suffering mother who has to take care of her husband, with his spells of mental confusion and obsessive behavior, and her increasingly-wayward daughter. chloe has more money, but she also has a mean streak, a sense of entitlement, and the invincibility of being a pretty teenage girl. she shoplifts and bullies lola constantly, and then she meets a much older man and begins a relationship with him, leaving lola further behind. around this time, emma appears on the scene, she becomes fast friends with chloe, and they begin excluding lola from their friendship.
the reasons will be given, but they will be unsatisfying, leaving more questions than resolutions.
as a backdrop, a flasher begins terrorizing young girls in the city, and a boy goes missing.
for me, it is too many things: a young girl resenting her parents' shortcomings while still retaining tenderness for her lost father, the story of a media intent on providing entertainment and misleading the viewers with tawdry crimes and instilling fear, the story of teenage friendships and the toxic elements of peer pressure, and secrets secrets secrets.
and it comes back around to character. i do not understand why (and this is a huge spoiler, for reals)
i don't know. i am still curious about ashworth's other book, but this one just didn't work for me. maybe it will work for you?
i am only half-engaged in writing this review, so i'm sorry if it makes no sense. my brain feels spongy.
come to my blog!
it started off really strong for me, with a great premise, but i was a bit let down by the ending. and by ending, i mean the last 100 pages, pretty much.
see- here's the thing - i got up to page 62, and i forgot this thing at home. it was devastating. i had nothing to read on the subway going in to work, and had to actually look at people. it was the worst. so i borrowed a book at work, and read it and then returned to this book the next day. so maybe my momentum was broken, maybe i was just angry that it had let itself be forgotten so easily, maybe maybe maybe. but maybe i just didn't like it very much.
i think a lot of it boils down to character. i am fine with unlikeable characters. i am fine with unreliable characters. i am not fine with implausible characters - characters who have something happen to them in their youth and then spend the rest of their lives stuck in amber because of it. come on - you must have done something in that time! no? nothing?
this is about a twenty-four year old woman who lost her best friend to an apparent suicide-pact with her much older boyfriend when they are both fourteen. their relationship had been one based on an uneven power struggle from the outset - lola is shy and poor, with parents older than most; a long-suffering mother who has to take care of her husband, with his spells of mental confusion and obsessive behavior, and her increasingly-wayward daughter. chloe has more money, but she also has a mean streak, a sense of entitlement, and the invincibility of being a pretty teenage girl. she shoplifts and bullies lola constantly, and then she meets a much older man and begins a relationship with him, leaving lola further behind. around this time, emma appears on the scene, she becomes fast friends with chloe, and they begin excluding lola from their friendship.
the reasons will be given, but they will be unsatisfying, leaving more questions than resolutions.
as a backdrop, a flasher begins terrorizing young girls in the city, and a boy goes missing.
for me, it is too many things: a young girl resenting her parents' shortcomings while still retaining tenderness for her lost father, the story of a media intent on providing entertainment and misleading the viewers with tawdry crimes and instilling fear, the story of teenage friendships and the toxic elements of peer pressure, and secrets secrets secrets.
and it comes back around to character. i do not understand why (and this is a huge spoiler, for reals)
i don't know. i am still curious about ashworth's other book, but this one just didn't work for me. maybe it will work for you?
i am only half-engaged in writing this review, so i'm sorry if it makes no sense. my brain feels spongy.
come to my blog!
September 28, 2012
3.5 stars. Maybe.
This one smells like teen spirit. I'm okay with that, but I'm becoming increasingly irritated with book marketing schemes that mislead readers by not tagging a book as a young adult selection. Not that it's unsuitable for adults. It's well written and the plot is intriguing, but it's heavy on the teen hangout scene, with kids trying to be cool and ganging up on the weak.
This is a story that starts off dark and becomes darker and darker still. It made me glad I don't have children, because it relies on realistic scenarios for its creepiness. If I had a teenage daughter, I'd have chained her to the bed frame by her chastity belt after reading this story. It revolves around a precocious and manipulative fourteen-year-old girl, shoplifting, pedophilia, lots of underage drinking and smoking, and deaths under suspicious circumstances. Chloe made me think of William March's The Bad Seed.
I may write more later if the hand will cooperate...
This one smells like teen spirit. I'm okay with that, but I'm becoming increasingly irritated with book marketing schemes that mislead readers by not tagging a book as a young adult selection. Not that it's unsuitable for adults. It's well written and the plot is intriguing, but it's heavy on the teen hangout scene, with kids trying to be cool and ganging up on the weak.
This is a story that starts off dark and becomes darker and darker still. It made me glad I don't have children, because it relies on realistic scenarios for its creepiness. If I had a teenage daughter, I'd have chained her to the bed frame by her chastity belt after reading this story. It revolves around a precocious and manipulative fourteen-year-old girl, shoplifting, pedophilia, lots of underage drinking and smoking, and deaths under suspicious circumstances. Chloe made me think of William March's The Bad Seed.
I may write more later if the hand will cooperate...
August 21, 2012
The cover of Jenn Ashworth’s second novel (the American cover) is badly misleading and presents as teenage-chick-lit-murder-kitsch trash preening to take itself seriously. However, when you start reading, you realize that you are in the hands of an evocative, acutely observant writer who may, in the not-too distant future, pen a novel that earns a spot on the Booker long-list. She can turn a phrase, spin raw into bold, scour us with prose.
Ashworth writes searchingly, hauntingly, and meticulously about teenage restiveness and jealousy; growing up with a mentally unstable parent; how the media erects false monuments; predators and predatory nature; and the inner lives of people short-circuited by guilt and shame, shut down by life at a young age. Her narrators are unreliable, abject, contrary.
Think indie film, back when indie films weren’t an industry of precious, quirky, star-making features, but rather ensemble pieces shown partly in grainy texture, in an atmosphere that is “shrieky and curious and raw.” This is somewhere in an economically depressed place in Lancashire, near the Ribble Valley. Laura, now twenty-four, lives in the council flats and works as a cleaner in the local shopping center. She’s pallid and dingy with limp hair and acne scars. Everything in her flat seems coated in a furry substance.
Laura turns to the TV for a broadcast memorializing her best friend, Chloe, fourteen, who drowned ten years ago with Chloe’s much older boyfriend in an apparent suicide pact on Valentine’s Day, 1998. But no one says “suicide,” they say “tragedy.” The council is erecting a monument, essentially making Chloe a saint. There’s now a rose named for her, called Juliet, as in Romeo and Juliet.
“She was special, when she was alive—but not in the picture-perfect way people think of her now. Being dead has turned her into a final draft.”
This “concrete folly” being erected is “half a monument to love gone wrong and half a nice piece of publicity for the City’s urban renewal programme--… something for the teenagers to [smoke] their glue in. It’s morbid and sentimental, it ticks all the right boxes for community enterprise funding…”
First on the scene with unexplained deaths and always bursting with bad news, newscaster Terry Best of television’s The City Today mugs up to the camera, as he has been for twenty years. As the cameras roll on the ribbon-cutting with the mayor, a piece of earth is dug with a spade, and another body is unearthed, temporarily taking the limelight off Chloe. Terry’s in his element, though, upstaging Chloe while floridly covering both events—sharp Terry, always ready for seamy, muddy twists, making a living on it, a daily fixture in their lives.
The narrative alternates between the present and the past, a reconstruction of Chloe and Laura’s friendship, with a third wheel, Emma, who, ten years later, is demonstrably more mentally unbalanced than Laura. Emma lives on disability and volunteers at a pet shelter. Emma and Laura have a tenuous bond now, meet for coffee sometimes, and speak dartingly of Chloe.
In the evening, Emma comes by Laura’s flat, after the newly discovered body is declared on the news, and Chloe and Emma share a box of wine and delve deeper into the past. Through these circumspect conversations and inner dialogue, the reader slowly, gradually begins to piece together an accurate picture of the past. We also learn about Laura's family life--her deprivations, her father’s illness, the constant and accumulating terrors of everyday life.
Although the unreliable narrators are integral to the reconstruction of events, at times it feels protracted, and you just want the story to get on with itself. The casual pacing falters at intervals. From the first chapter, you realize that this is not a “detective novel,” per se; however, there is tension from unexplained events. Predators skulk the woods, a person goes missing, shadows lurk. But it is primarily about the accretion of psychological blows, the small bruises and bitter inflictions, and the skewed perceptions of the media, which glimmers on everything but the truth.
“Every single time Emma came up with a fact, I provided one more and she ran out of things to say first, and at the end I was still holding Chloe’s secret in my mouth, like the time we put buttons under our tongues to make us sound posh when we made prank phone calls.”
Ashworth writes searchingly, hauntingly, and meticulously about teenage restiveness and jealousy; growing up with a mentally unstable parent; how the media erects false monuments; predators and predatory nature; and the inner lives of people short-circuited by guilt and shame, shut down by life at a young age. Her narrators are unreliable, abject, contrary.
Think indie film, back when indie films weren’t an industry of precious, quirky, star-making features, but rather ensemble pieces shown partly in grainy texture, in an atmosphere that is “shrieky and curious and raw.” This is somewhere in an economically depressed place in Lancashire, near the Ribble Valley. Laura, now twenty-four, lives in the council flats and works as a cleaner in the local shopping center. She’s pallid and dingy with limp hair and acne scars. Everything in her flat seems coated in a furry substance.
Laura turns to the TV for a broadcast memorializing her best friend, Chloe, fourteen, who drowned ten years ago with Chloe’s much older boyfriend in an apparent suicide pact on Valentine’s Day, 1998. But no one says “suicide,” they say “tragedy.” The council is erecting a monument, essentially making Chloe a saint. There’s now a rose named for her, called Juliet, as in Romeo and Juliet.
“She was special, when she was alive—but not in the picture-perfect way people think of her now. Being dead has turned her into a final draft.”
This “concrete folly” being erected is “half a monument to love gone wrong and half a nice piece of publicity for the City’s urban renewal programme--… something for the teenagers to [smoke] their glue in. It’s morbid and sentimental, it ticks all the right boxes for community enterprise funding…”
First on the scene with unexplained deaths and always bursting with bad news, newscaster Terry Best of television’s The City Today mugs up to the camera, as he has been for twenty years. As the cameras roll on the ribbon-cutting with the mayor, a piece of earth is dug with a spade, and another body is unearthed, temporarily taking the limelight off Chloe. Terry’s in his element, though, upstaging Chloe while floridly covering both events—sharp Terry, always ready for seamy, muddy twists, making a living on it, a daily fixture in their lives.
The narrative alternates between the present and the past, a reconstruction of Chloe and Laura’s friendship, with a third wheel, Emma, who, ten years later, is demonstrably more mentally unbalanced than Laura. Emma lives on disability and volunteers at a pet shelter. Emma and Laura have a tenuous bond now, meet for coffee sometimes, and speak dartingly of Chloe.
In the evening, Emma comes by Laura’s flat, after the newly discovered body is declared on the news, and Chloe and Emma share a box of wine and delve deeper into the past. Through these circumspect conversations and inner dialogue, the reader slowly, gradually begins to piece together an accurate picture of the past. We also learn about Laura's family life--her deprivations, her father’s illness, the constant and accumulating terrors of everyday life.
Although the unreliable narrators are integral to the reconstruction of events, at times it feels protracted, and you just want the story to get on with itself. The casual pacing falters at intervals. From the first chapter, you realize that this is not a “detective novel,” per se; however, there is tension from unexplained events. Predators skulk the woods, a person goes missing, shadows lurk. But it is primarily about the accretion of psychological blows, the small bruises and bitter inflictions, and the skewed perceptions of the media, which glimmers on everything but the truth.
“Every single time Emma came up with a fact, I provided one more and she ran out of things to say first, and at the end I was still holding Chloe’s secret in my mouth, like the time we put buttons under our tongues to make us sound posh when we made prank phone calls.”
February 15, 2016
The book's cover and description strongly evoked the ever so good Jennifer McMahon's work and yet ultimately the comparison has only served to highlight the disappointment. I can't possibly explain all the accolades and praise this book has gathered. The Times comparing it to Ruth Rendell is downright criminal. One doesn't expect a font of originality, this is a fairly standard formula of childhood friends sharing a secret that comes up to haunt them as adults some years later. One expects a decent amount of drama and, ideally, a decent amount of mystery. To be fair, this book did have both, sort of, but the drama was so uninteresting and so heavily set during the early years of teenagerhood, it made one feel like reading a YA story about an uneasy friendship triangle of three young girls and the mystery was just not particularly mysterious and, again, quite uninteresting, so when the grand reveals would come up, it was just kinda blah. It might have been more compelling condensed into a novella then stretched out into a novel, the plot was just too thin for the volume. The main flaw though was probably the author's failure to make any of the characters (as kids or adults) particularly charismatic or compelling and so for a reader it was really difficult to care about their story. This wasn't a terrible book by any means, for the most part it was perfectly readable, it just offered nothing new, original or exciting in a genre where there are so many infinitely more impressive entries.
September 2, 2022
"Yikes. Weird and yucky and good. This deserves a reread at some point."
That was my review from when I read this in 2013. I finally decided to reread this, because after nine years, I remembered nothing, and I convinced Nenia to BR it with me.
Well, I was a different reader back then, and in 2022 I'm not feeling so generous with my rating. This wasn't a bad book, but it's not really what I'm into these days, and so it didn't impress me like it apparently did the first time around. Based on my first review, I was expecting this to be a fucked-up little thriller. And it was fucked-up, but not very thrilling.
The characters were extremely unlikable, but they were so well-portrayed that it was fun to hate them. I could picture them all perfectly, and they were interesting. A lot of the trouble was that the middle of the book lacked action. And while the ending was good, it didn't shock me the way I guess it did nine years ago, so it felt a little disappointing.
I don't feel the need to reread this again. While I don't think this is a bad book by a long shot, and I'm actually baffled as to why the average rating is so low, it's not for me anymore.
That was my review from when I read this in 2013. I finally decided to reread this, because after nine years, I remembered nothing, and I convinced Nenia to BR it with me.
Well, I was a different reader back then, and in 2022 I'm not feeling so generous with my rating. This wasn't a bad book, but it's not really what I'm into these days, and so it didn't impress me like it apparently did the first time around. Based on my first review, I was expecting this to be a fucked-up little thriller. And it was fucked-up, but not very thrilling.
The characters were extremely unlikable, but they were so well-portrayed that it was fun to hate them. I could picture them all perfectly, and they were interesting. A lot of the trouble was that the middle of the book lacked action. And while the ending was good, it didn't shock me the way I guess it did nine years ago, so it felt a little disappointing.
I don't feel the need to reread this again. While I don't think this is a bad book by a long shot, and I'm actually baffled as to why the average rating is so low, it's not for me anymore.
February 10, 2024
A toxic murder novel not in the way I asked for, but in the way I needed.
February 25, 2017
Cold Light is both a coming-of-age story and a murder mystery of sorts. Our protagonist, Laura, is a lonely 24-year-old cleaner in an anonymous Northern city, and we meet her as she sits down to watch the televised unveiling of a memorial to her former 'best friend', Chloe, who died ten years before. The story then spools back to the events of that winter, with Laura - who then called herself Lola - narrating her story as a confused teenager. She is caught between a depressing life at home with her distant mother and mentally ill father, and her all-consuming idolatry of Chloe, who in fact is often manipulative, spiteful and cruel. Chloe, in turn, is under the spell of her menacing older boyfriend, Carl. We know the story is progressing towards some sort of tragedy, as the fact of Chloe's death is made plain from page one, but Jenn Ashworth does a good job of keeping the reader guessing about how and why this happens, with various secrets staying under wraps right to the very end.
You can certainly tell Ashworth is a child of the early 80s, and she's got many of the details of teenage life in the late 90s spot on. (Even the names - have you ever met a shy or geeky Chloe? The name practically exudes a uniquely teenage kind of glamour.) I laughed when, for example, Lola described Chloe's hairstyle on a date with Carl; 'Her hair was scraped back into a scrunchie, apart from two long strands at the front. She'd wet those with spit and curled them around her finger.' Teen girls of the 90s, summed up in just one hairdo. Lola isn't a hugely likeable character, but her narrative voice is wholly believable as that of a 14-year-old. The style often recalls The Tulip Touch, one of my favourite children's books, with the twisted relationship between Lola and Chloe mirroring that of Natalie and Tulip (and as Ashworth is a similar age to me, I can't help but wonder if she read this book as a child too, and might have been influenced by it).
The blurb for Cold Light says there's 'a surreal edge to its portrait of a northern town'; it's surreal all right, but whether it's successful in this is another matter. 'The City', as Lola calls it throughout the story, is weirdly self-contained, with residents rarely leaving its confines. There's the odd detail of a local newsreader who mysteriously exerts a powerful influence over the community, which feels like it would fit more comfortably into a US-based story and doesn't ring true of an English town. Similarly, the idea that the streets would be completely empty at night because of a flasher exposing himself to teenage girls would make far more sense if the story was set in a small, isolated village (is this mass reaction really plausible for a city?) It doesn't add up that Lola is so prejudiced and ignorant about Wilson's disabilities, given her own father's significant mental health problems. And I also found it hard to believe that the entire city would still be so obsessed with Chloe ten years after her death; I know some tragedies linger in the public consciousness longer than others, but if the people of the City were so keen to turn vigilante against a flasher, I'm pretty sure they wouldn't romanticise a relationship between a 14-year-old girl and a 29-year-old man.
I'd been looking forward to reading this book for months, and was delighted to find a copy in the library. Given my anticipation, I felt somewhat let down by it. Aside from the last few chapters, it often reads like YA fiction, as opposed to adult fiction about teenagers, which might be an advantage for some readers, but wasn't what I was looking for (Mary Horlock's The Book of Lies did it much better). It has all the right ingredients for something darkly intriguing, but somehow, all the interesting elements never quite come together and in places it feels dull and flat. That said, there was something about it that compelled me to read on, and I'm no less interested in Ashworth's other work - I still think her first novel, A Kind of Intimacy, looks potentially excellent. Cold Light, meanwhile, is a good - but not great - read with a lot of weak patches and some solid redeeming features; not brilliant, but certainly worth a look.
You can certainly tell Ashworth is a child of the early 80s, and she's got many of the details of teenage life in the late 90s spot on. (Even the names - have you ever met a shy or geeky Chloe? The name practically exudes a uniquely teenage kind of glamour.) I laughed when, for example, Lola described Chloe's hairstyle on a date with Carl; 'Her hair was scraped back into a scrunchie, apart from two long strands at the front. She'd wet those with spit and curled them around her finger.' Teen girls of the 90s, summed up in just one hairdo. Lola isn't a hugely likeable character, but her narrative voice is wholly believable as that of a 14-year-old. The style often recalls The Tulip Touch, one of my favourite children's books, with the twisted relationship between Lola and Chloe mirroring that of Natalie and Tulip (and as Ashworth is a similar age to me, I can't help but wonder if she read this book as a child too, and might have been influenced by it).
The blurb for Cold Light says there's 'a surreal edge to its portrait of a northern town'; it's surreal all right, but whether it's successful in this is another matter. 'The City', as Lola calls it throughout the story, is weirdly self-contained, with residents rarely leaving its confines. There's the odd detail of a local newsreader who mysteriously exerts a powerful influence over the community, which feels like it would fit more comfortably into a US-based story and doesn't ring true of an English town. Similarly, the idea that the streets would be completely empty at night because of a flasher exposing himself to teenage girls would make far more sense if the story was set in a small, isolated village (is this mass reaction really plausible for a city?) It doesn't add up that Lola is so prejudiced and ignorant about Wilson's disabilities, given her own father's significant mental health problems. And I also found it hard to believe that the entire city would still be so obsessed with Chloe ten years after her death; I know some tragedies linger in the public consciousness longer than others, but if the people of the City were so keen to turn vigilante against a flasher, I'm pretty sure they wouldn't romanticise a relationship between a 14-year-old girl and a 29-year-old man.
I'd been looking forward to reading this book for months, and was delighted to find a copy in the library. Given my anticipation, I felt somewhat let down by it. Aside from the last few chapters, it often reads like YA fiction, as opposed to adult fiction about teenagers, which might be an advantage for some readers, but wasn't what I was looking for (Mary Horlock's The Book of Lies did it much better). It has all the right ingredients for something darkly intriguing, but somehow, all the interesting elements never quite come together and in places it feels dull and flat. That said, there was something about it that compelled me to read on, and I'm no less interested in Ashworth's other work - I still think her first novel, A Kind of Intimacy, looks potentially excellent. Cold Light, meanwhile, is a good - but not great - read with a lot of weak patches and some solid redeeming features; not brilliant, but certainly worth a look.
October 31, 2012
Ok, so I was absolutely intrigued by this book because we've all had that one really best friend who we've done everything with and the thought of not having them is devastating, especially when you're 14. Plus, when you have a tagline like "They found a body. I know who it is." - who doesn't want to read that?
But I was disappointed. I have a really hard time when the writing is so lofty. I mean, to explain one scene takes pages and it makes it really hard for me to continue, let alone care. Did I finish the book? I absolutely did because what I discovered is that I didn't like Chloe one bit and not to be cruel, but I kind of wanted her character to be killed. That sounds so totally wrong, but really. Bad egg from the start. But everything about this book is bizarre. You have a teenager with clearly low self esteem (Laura), you have a teenager who is clearly misguided and a bad influence (Chloe), and then you throw in this insane cast of characters- the family, Carl, Wilson, Emma, etc and it's just too much.
Did I see the ending coming? OK, I will admit it and say no, I didn't. I didn't love the ending, but I guess in hindsight it all kind of made sense. It doesn't change the fact that this book was so hard for me to read just because it's written so difficult. Does that make sense? It's like all of this added time was given to lofty paragraphs and drawn out passages that I was so frustrated within the first 100 pages. Then I thought once the story got rolling it would flow better but it didn't.
I really wanted this to be like a Jennifer McMahon where nothing is really what it seems and it blows you away at the end and it just wasn't. It took me three weeks to read this book and that tells you something considering I can get through about 3-4 books in a weekend. I'm a fast reader but I kept losing interest in this one and that was probably the biggest disappointment to me.
BUT.
I am still going to encourage you to read it because I've seen some other readers rave about this book so maybe it's just me. Maybe I'll feel differently if I read this one in a year, maybe I'd love it then. Who knows. Check out Jenn's webpage HERE too because there is a lot more book information that will likely sway you to read this.
But I was disappointed. I have a really hard time when the writing is so lofty. I mean, to explain one scene takes pages and it makes it really hard for me to continue, let alone care. Did I finish the book? I absolutely did because what I discovered is that I didn't like Chloe one bit and not to be cruel, but I kind of wanted her character to be killed. That sounds so totally wrong, but really. Bad egg from the start. But everything about this book is bizarre. You have a teenager with clearly low self esteem (Laura), you have a teenager who is clearly misguided and a bad influence (Chloe), and then you throw in this insane cast of characters- the family, Carl, Wilson, Emma, etc and it's just too much.
Did I see the ending coming? OK, I will admit it and say no, I didn't. I didn't love the ending, but I guess in hindsight it all kind of made sense. It doesn't change the fact that this book was so hard for me to read just because it's written so difficult. Does that make sense? It's like all of this added time was given to lofty paragraphs and drawn out passages that I was so frustrated within the first 100 pages. Then I thought once the story got rolling it would flow better but it didn't.
I really wanted this to be like a Jennifer McMahon where nothing is really what it seems and it blows you away at the end and it just wasn't. It took me three weeks to read this book and that tells you something considering I can get through about 3-4 books in a weekend. I'm a fast reader but I kept losing interest in this one and that was probably the biggest disappointment to me.
BUT.
I am still going to encourage you to read it because I've seen some other readers rave about this book so maybe it's just me. Maybe I'll feel differently if I read this one in a year, maybe I'd love it then. Who knows. Check out Jenn's webpage HERE too because there is a lot more book information that will likely sway you to read this.
April 22, 2013
If I could have rated this 0 stars I would have. This review was originally posted on my blog at http://knowitnotsomuch.blogspot.com
I hated this book. Hated. It.
I did not like one character, except for maybe Donald. Though, I didn't really like him, I mainly felt sorry for him. This is truly one of those times when my judging books by their covers utterly failed me.
I think what bothered me most about this book is from the description you expect some sort of mystery/thriller, but instead you're trapped into reading about the pathetic whining of a selfish, disturbed fourteen year old girl. Her mother is a complete and utter horror, her 'best friend' could care less about her and her father suffers from some sort of dementia.
Something awful does happen and in a painfully slow pace we get to that part. And when you think that the horrible thing is ultimately as bad as it would seem you learn something else that erases any sort of sympathy you might have had for Lola. There are no redeeming qualities of Lola. She is utterly disgusting. At times I thought she wanted to do the right thing, but she didn't. She only wanted to make her life better. She was only ever thinking of herself.
There was no one to root for. Even the 'famous' talk show host is disgusting and self-serving. I couldn't give two shits about anyone in this book. For all I cared they all could have drowned in that lake. That might have made a better story. Ugh. This book just made me angry.
I hated this book. Hated. It.
I did not like one character, except for maybe Donald. Though, I didn't really like him, I mainly felt sorry for him. This is truly one of those times when my judging books by their covers utterly failed me.
I think what bothered me most about this book is from the description you expect some sort of mystery/thriller, but instead you're trapped into reading about the pathetic whining of a selfish, disturbed fourteen year old girl. Her mother is a complete and utter horror, her 'best friend' could care less about her and her father suffers from some sort of dementia.
Something awful does happen and in a painfully slow pace we get to that part. And when you think that the horrible thing is ultimately as bad as it would seem you learn something else that erases any sort of sympathy you might have had for Lola. There are no redeeming qualities of Lola. She is utterly disgusting. At times I thought she wanted to do the right thing, but she didn't. She only wanted to make her life better. She was only ever thinking of herself.
There was no one to root for. Even the 'famous' talk show host is disgusting and self-serving. I couldn't give two shits about anyone in this book. For all I cared they all could have drowned in that lake. That might have made a better story. Ugh. This book just made me angry.
January 28, 2020
This one isn't very well written. There is a lot of repetition and even though it's a short read it really seemed to drag on and I never really cared what happened to any of the characters. First of all the plot about a fourteen year old girl killing herself because she couldn't be with her twenty-nine year old boyfriend, being romanticized by an entire town just didn't ring at all true to me. It's gross, it's pedophelia and I don't see an entire town holding vigil's ten years later over something like that. Then the plot "twist" at the end... just no.
November 6, 2020
I read Jenn Ashworth's last novel a few years ago after hearing her speak and loved her ability to capture the essence of a Northern England town and in this book she demonstrates that skill in abundance as well her as her excellent story telling, character building and sense of time and place.
The idea of teenage girls having a mystery that comes back to haunt them in later life is not an unusual theme for writers and in this book Laura, a somewhat down trodden twenty something in 2008 looks back on events of 10 years before after a local news TV reporter piece on the commemoration of the tragic death of her teenage friend Chloe. The front page image is a doomed love affair after the 14 year old drowned making her into a modern day Juliet ( not a spoiler) but Jenn Ashworth wonderfully takes the story apart by gradually revealing the layers and layers of teenage cruelty, the parental teenager relationship, and predatory men.
The setting , Preston, is not drawn sympathetically but I could elicit the writers love of the North West area.
Definitely a read I enjoyed and a writer who I now want to continue reading.
The idea of teenage girls having a mystery that comes back to haunt them in later life is not an unusual theme for writers and in this book Laura, a somewhat down trodden twenty something in 2008 looks back on events of 10 years before after a local news TV reporter piece on the commemoration of the tragic death of her teenage friend Chloe. The front page image is a doomed love affair after the 14 year old drowned making her into a modern day Juliet ( not a spoiler) but Jenn Ashworth wonderfully takes the story apart by gradually revealing the layers and layers of teenage cruelty, the parental teenager relationship, and predatory men.
The setting , Preston, is not drawn sympathetically but I could elicit the writers love of the North West area.
Definitely a read I enjoyed and a writer who I now want to continue reading.
November 18, 2017
The agonies and ecstasies of teenage friendships, the vulnerability and exploitation of young people, the self-serving careers of people in the media, the hypocrisy of society - all shown to great effect in this book. Jenn Ashworth sees into every corner of so-called normal life and you see that nothing is normal.
June 15, 2017
I forced myself to finish because I used a Scribd credit to get this book. It just wasn't for me. It felt too slow and the characters were not very interesting.
September 2, 2011
A dark, bleak, tragic tale of three fourteen-year-old girls in a northern town in the late nineties, with them delving into the adult world and getting hurt and damaged. There is a flasher around, and girls in the town are on their guard. Laura, known as Lola as a teenager, values her friendship with Chloe, despite it’s difficulties, because she now has someone to hang out with, someone she likes being in the company of. But when Chloe starts seeing Carl, in his late twenties, and when she also becomes more friendly with another girl at school, Emma, Laura experiences jealousy and wishes things could be like they were before. Laura is the first person narrator and so it’s through her eyes that we see everything, and it’s her thoughts that we are privy to. Thoughts about her schooldays, her life at the time all the things happen involving Chloe, Carl, Emma and herself, her relationship with her mother and father, and her thoughts now, in her twenties, looking back on that period of her life, as a new event occurs that relates to that time in her past.
Despite the grim premise and storyline, and the undisputedly sad turn of affairs, this is an intriguing read and I found it compelling. It is tense and atmospheric, and I was very drawn in by the voice of Laura narrating the story. I had to know what had happened. It’s a clever novel with all-too-true observations about how teenage girls are still young girls with immaturities and naiveties on the one hand, but on the other they are creeping ever closer to the adult world, discovering the disappointments and realities of life, trying alcohol and sex, and the line between the two worlds of adolescence and adulthood becomes blurred like here, where their experiences tip over into that adult world and they find it can be a very dark, cruel place. It’s also about how someone can affect the lives of others, whether knowingly or unknowingly. I love the author’s writing style, and I think I liked this novel even more than her first, A Kind of Intimacy. Looking forward to her next book.
Despite the grim premise and storyline, and the undisputedly sad turn of affairs, this is an intriguing read and I found it compelling. It is tense and atmospheric, and I was very drawn in by the voice of Laura narrating the story. I had to know what had happened. It’s a clever novel with all-too-true observations about how teenage girls are still young girls with immaturities and naiveties on the one hand, but on the other they are creeping ever closer to the adult world, discovering the disappointments and realities of life, trying alcohol and sex, and the line between the two worlds of adolescence and adulthood becomes blurred like here, where their experiences tip over into that adult world and they find it can be a very dark, cruel place. It’s also about how someone can affect the lives of others, whether knowingly or unknowingly. I love the author’s writing style, and I think I liked this novel even more than her first, A Kind of Intimacy. Looking forward to her next book.
October 16, 2012
Ten years ago, two teenagers drowned in a pond in England. To memorialize them, the town is erecting a summerhouse beside the pond. But when the mayor pushes the spade into the earth to mark the start of the construction, he pulls up more than just dirt. A body has been buried by the side of the pond, and Lola knows who it is.
Cold Light by Jenn Ashworth is a psychological thriller that really gets at the struggles of teenage friendship and its effects that can be felt for many years. I don't generally read young adult novels, but the relationship aspects of these 14 year old girls would probably appeal to YA fans. It is pretty dark though. None of the characters is really likeable ~ there's bullying and shoplifting, parental depression and death, and a sexual predator is on the loose. There really aren't any positive, happy moments in this novel.
But something kept me engaged. Bits and pieces of the circumstances that led to the drowning and the buried body are revealed slowly, making the pages turn quickly. I think Ashworth's writing style is what got me hooked:
"A morning sometime in the winter before she died. The three of us went into town; it must have been before Christmas because the daft music was playing in all the shops and the tinsel in every window made my eyes ache. Town was so busy that I kept losing them - chasing them between racks of clothes and shoes that seemed to grow and divide and close in on me like a dream while my eyes itched with tears because I couldn't help but feel the two of them were doing it on purpose, and really wanted me to go away."
I saw a review here on Goodreads that likened this novel to an indy film, and I think that's a good analogy; it's dark and gritty like an indy film. Cold Light is very different than many of the books I read, but I really enjoyed it despite the rather depressing theme. Watch the book trailer (available on the book's Goodreads page) and you'll get a good idea of the feeling this book evokes.
Cold Light by Jenn Ashworth is a psychological thriller that really gets at the struggles of teenage friendship and its effects that can be felt for many years. I don't generally read young adult novels, but the relationship aspects of these 14 year old girls would probably appeal to YA fans. It is pretty dark though. None of the characters is really likeable ~ there's bullying and shoplifting, parental depression and death, and a sexual predator is on the loose. There really aren't any positive, happy moments in this novel.
But something kept me engaged. Bits and pieces of the circumstances that led to the drowning and the buried body are revealed slowly, making the pages turn quickly. I think Ashworth's writing style is what got me hooked:
"A morning sometime in the winter before she died. The three of us went into town; it must have been before Christmas because the daft music was playing in all the shops and the tinsel in every window made my eyes ache. Town was so busy that I kept losing them - chasing them between racks of clothes and shoes that seemed to grow and divide and close in on me like a dream while my eyes itched with tears because I couldn't help but feel the two of them were doing it on purpose, and really wanted me to go away."
I saw a review here on Goodreads that likened this novel to an indy film, and I think that's a good analogy; it's dark and gritty like an indy film. Cold Light is very different than many of the books I read, but I really enjoyed it despite the rather depressing theme. Watch the book trailer (available on the book's Goodreads page) and you'll get a good idea of the feeling this book evokes.
March 12, 2011
Jenn Ashworth's first novel 'A Kind of Intimacy' was one of my favourite reads of 2010 so I was thrilled to receive a proof pre-publication copy of 'Cold Light'.
The story of 'Cold Light' revolves around three teenage girls; Chloe, Lola and Emma who live in a small town in Northern England and is narrated by Lola, or Laura as she prefers to be known nowadays. The prologue is set in the present day and it is made clear to the reader that Laura is not the happiest of people and that Chloe has been dead for the last ten years. It is the anniversary of her death and a memorial to her memory is being held in the town. Jenn Ashworth is an expert in creating unreliable narrators and Laura appears both innocent and naive whilst having a hint of unkindness and malevolence at the same time.
Laura relates the story of her friendship with Chloe and the events leading up to her death, this is cleverly done with flash backs which tie in nicely to the events unfolding during the present day
Chloe has to be one of the most objectionable fictional characters I've ever come across, not since Barbara in Zoe Heller's 'Notes on a Scandal' have I disliked a character so much, yet this adds so much to this story, it's compelling and fast paced and really cleverly written. Chloe spends much of her time being over-dramatic, causing choas and playing her two friends off against one another. She is controlling and manipulative yet has a certain something that makes Lola and Emma keep coming back for more. Her relationship with the much-older Carl is quite dark and disturbing at times, there is a definate air of menace in the story which can make the reader feel a little uncomfortable at times.
An excellent story line, well drawn characters and a realistic setting - this novel ticks all of my must-haves. Fantastic stuff!
The story of 'Cold Light' revolves around three teenage girls; Chloe, Lola and Emma who live in a small town in Northern England and is narrated by Lola, or Laura as she prefers to be known nowadays. The prologue is set in the present day and it is made clear to the reader that Laura is not the happiest of people and that Chloe has been dead for the last ten years. It is the anniversary of her death and a memorial to her memory is being held in the town. Jenn Ashworth is an expert in creating unreliable narrators and Laura appears both innocent and naive whilst having a hint of unkindness and malevolence at the same time.
Laura relates the story of her friendship with Chloe and the events leading up to her death, this is cleverly done with flash backs which tie in nicely to the events unfolding during the present day
Chloe has to be one of the most objectionable fictional characters I've ever come across, not since Barbara in Zoe Heller's 'Notes on a Scandal' have I disliked a character so much, yet this adds so much to this story, it's compelling and fast paced and really cleverly written. Chloe spends much of her time being over-dramatic, causing choas and playing her two friends off against one another. She is controlling and manipulative yet has a certain something that makes Lola and Emma keep coming back for more. Her relationship with the much-older Carl is quite dark and disturbing at times, there is a definate air of menace in the story which can make the reader feel a little uncomfortable at times.
An excellent story line, well drawn characters and a realistic setting - this novel ticks all of my must-haves. Fantastic stuff!
October 13, 2012
Reviewed by Heather
"This is the tale of two fourteen-year-old girls, best friends, and one terrible summer when lies, secrets, jealousy, and perversion ended in tragedy more tangled and evil than a tight-knit community can possibly believe. A dark tale with a surreal edge, Jenn Ashworth's gripping novel captures the intensity of girls' friendships and the dangers of a predatory adult world they are just grown up enough to think they can handle. And it shows just how far that world will go, sacrificing truth in the name of innocence." - from Edelweiss
I'm just going to go ahead and say that I did not like Cold Light at all. When I first started it, I immediately knew that it would take me a while to possibly get into it. I continued reading, hoping that would happen. Sadly, it did not. For me to be able to enjoy a book I need to be able to connect with at least one character. I hated every character in this book. They had zero redeeming qualities amongst them.
Lola was a doormat. I know she was young, but she took whatever Chloe, Emma and Carl threw at her without complaint.
Chloe was a bitch. She reminded me of the girls from the movie "Mean Girls" only 100 times worse.
Emma was a sheep. She wanted so badly for Chloe to like her that she did her bidding, no matter how cruel it was.
And Carl...he was an asshole. Not too much I can say about that without giving away the entire plot.
The only reason, and I mean only reason that I finished this book was to make damn certain that Chloe got hers.
"This is the tale of two fourteen-year-old girls, best friends, and one terrible summer when lies, secrets, jealousy, and perversion ended in tragedy more tangled and evil than a tight-knit community can possibly believe. A dark tale with a surreal edge, Jenn Ashworth's gripping novel captures the intensity of girls' friendships and the dangers of a predatory adult world they are just grown up enough to think they can handle. And it shows just how far that world will go, sacrificing truth in the name of innocence." - from Edelweiss
I'm just going to go ahead and say that I did not like Cold Light at all. When I first started it, I immediately knew that it would take me a while to possibly get into it. I continued reading, hoping that would happen. Sadly, it did not. For me to be able to enjoy a book I need to be able to connect with at least one character. I hated every character in this book. They had zero redeeming qualities amongst them.
Lola was a doormat. I know she was young, but she took whatever Chloe, Emma and Carl threw at her without complaint.
Chloe was a bitch. She reminded me of the girls from the movie "Mean Girls" only 100 times worse.
Emma was a sheep. She wanted so badly for Chloe to like her that she did her bidding, no matter how cruel it was.
And Carl...he was an asshole. Not too much I can say about that without giving away the entire plot.
The only reason, and I mean only reason that I finished this book was to make damn certain that Chloe got hers.
October 24, 2012
This is the first book I’ve bought from seeing the GR ad, and watching the trailer! But had I not liked the sample, I would not have gotten it. I do love books set in different places, so that added to the enjoyment for me.
Similar to the Pretty Little Liars TV series (I’ve never read the books), a young girl dies 10 years before, and her two best friends still keep her secrets and some of their own. The narrarative switches back and forth from present to the past, and little by little it is revealed what actually happened.
"I hadn't known she played the violin, I didn't know the names of her brothers, what the inside of her house was like, whether she liked using body spray or just plain soap. And I've no doubt that I was as peripheral to her as she was to me - it was only Chloe we had in common, Chloe who brought us together and in many ways, kept us apart."
Chloe is a troubled girl who befriends Lola, an overweight sad girl with an even sadder home life. Chloe eventually brings in Emma to their little group. Set in the UK, these 14-years-olds kids drink, smoke, stay out at all hours. (Is this what they do across the pond??) There’s a flasher in the neighborhood, and while the city is talking about keeping a better eye on the kids, no one really does much about it. Chloe has a 30-year-old boyfriend, and they get up to no good.
The two kids who made it into adulthood are haunted by the events that happened in the past, and as another secret is discovered and broadcast on the news, they come to terms with what really took place.
I was really impressed by this! The writing was clever, and the characters were so tragic!
Similar to the Pretty Little Liars TV series (I’ve never read the books), a young girl dies 10 years before, and her two best friends still keep her secrets and some of their own. The narrarative switches back and forth from present to the past, and little by little it is revealed what actually happened.
"I hadn't known she played the violin, I didn't know the names of her brothers, what the inside of her house was like, whether she liked using body spray or just plain soap. And I've no doubt that I was as peripheral to her as she was to me - it was only Chloe we had in common, Chloe who brought us together and in many ways, kept us apart."
Chloe is a troubled girl who befriends Lola, an overweight sad girl with an even sadder home life. Chloe eventually brings in Emma to their little group. Set in the UK, these 14-years-olds kids drink, smoke, stay out at all hours. (Is this what they do across the pond??) There’s a flasher in the neighborhood, and while the city is talking about keeping a better eye on the kids, no one really does much about it. Chloe has a 30-year-old boyfriend, and they get up to no good.
The two kids who made it into adulthood are haunted by the events that happened in the past, and as another secret is discovered and broadcast on the news, they come to terms with what really took place.
I was really impressed by this! The writing was clever, and the characters were so tragic!
January 8, 2016
I thought this was an excellent book - very readable, extremely atmospheric, insightful and memorable. The book begins with the discovery of a body and the circumstances of how it came to be there gradually emerge in an extremely well-told story. It is not a detective story of any kind, but is concerned with the lives of the narrator and two of her school friends and how they came to be involved in the story. It switches easily between the present day and descriptions of events when they were all thirteen in 1997, and I found myself gripped and enthralled throughout.
I don't want to give away any plot details, but I found the story very plausible and the characters extremely well drawn. Jenn Ashworth is excellent at evoking the relationships between teenagers, and I thought truly brilliant in showing the life of a child in a family with a father with mental health problems. The atmosphere of a small City (never named, but with a striking resemblance to Preston) also seemed completely real to me, having spent my teenage years in a comparable city. The book has important things to say about teenage life, families and the effect of guilt both real and imagined, and is also very acute about the public and media response to tragedy.
My one reservation about this book is that I am not sure that someone of the background and education given to the narrator would be able to write so well or make such penetrating observations, but the book was easily good enough to make this seem irrelevant. It's very good indeed and recommended very warmly.
I don't want to give away any plot details, but I found the story very plausible and the characters extremely well drawn. Jenn Ashworth is excellent at evoking the relationships between teenagers, and I thought truly brilliant in showing the life of a child in a family with a father with mental health problems. The atmosphere of a small City (never named, but with a striking resemblance to Preston) also seemed completely real to me, having spent my teenage years in a comparable city. The book has important things to say about teenage life, families and the effect of guilt both real and imagined, and is also very acute about the public and media response to tragedy.
My one reservation about this book is that I am not sure that someone of the background and education given to the narrator would be able to write so well or make such penetrating observations, but the book was easily good enough to make this seem irrelevant. It's very good indeed and recommended very warmly.
March 3, 2013
This is definitely not a book that will give you a warm fuzzy feeling. It is a dark book about 3 teenage girls at the age of 14 who testing the waters of growing up by stealing, smoking, drinking and hanging out with an older man. The main character Laura (aka Lola) is an overweight reclusive girl who is befriended by a wild, outgoing and sometimes cruel girl named Chloe. Laura and Chloe are the best of friends until Chloe brings a new friend Emma into the fold and starts seeing an older man named Carl. Laura begins to get desperate and try's to do everything she can to make things go back to normal, but their friendship and her life begins to unwind.
The book goes back and forth to the present when Laura is 10 years older living a non existent life and going through her memories and to the past when she was 14 dealing with a flasher on the loose in her neighbourhood, growing up with much older parents, and disturbing secrets that led up to the death of her friend Chloe.
This is not a book I would normally pick up but the description caught my eye. Although at times it did lag there were other parts I found the suspense factor kept me going. It is not a happily ever after book but overall it was a good read and I would give it a 3.5.
The book goes back and forth to the present when Laura is 10 years older living a non existent life and going through her memories and to the past when she was 14 dealing with a flasher on the loose in her neighbourhood, growing up with much older parents, and disturbing secrets that led up to the death of her friend Chloe.
This is not a book I would normally pick up but the description caught my eye. Although at times it did lag there were other parts I found the suspense factor kept me going. It is not a happily ever after book but overall it was a good read and I would give it a 3.5.
January 5, 2013
This is an odd book. In fact I sat on reviewing it for several days. And maybe it is 3.5 stars. I wish I could give half stars.
This book is a bit confusing because it jumps back and for from present day to like 10 or 11 years ago when the 3 girls concerned were 14 when one of them committed suicide for love apparently.
Laura/Lola is our narrator. She ends up being somewhat unreliable. Because when a lot of things happened she was only 14 and didn't have the maturity or experience to understand all that was seen. And due to a lot of things, she didn't have someone on her side helping her to interpret these things. And I think she kind of got stuck at that developmental place.
Having said that, Ashworth is fairly repetitive and slow moving until we get to the end. But I think have a week to think about this, I'll give the book at least an extra half star and more appreciation for what Ashworth did give us--a sometimes confusing and challenging story that reveals itself in unexpected ways.
This book is a bit confusing because it jumps back and for from present day to like 10 or 11 years ago when the 3 girls concerned were 14 when one of them committed suicide for love apparently.
Laura/Lola is our narrator. She ends up being somewhat unreliable. Because when a lot of things happened she was only 14 and didn't have the maturity or experience to understand all that was seen. And due to a lot of things, she didn't have someone on her side helping her to interpret these things. And I think she kind of got stuck at that developmental place.
Having said that, Ashworth is fairly repetitive and slow moving until we get to the end. But I think have a week to think about this, I'll give the book at least an extra half star and more appreciation for what Ashworth did give us--a sometimes confusing and challenging story that reveals itself in unexpected ways.
March 24, 2013
I may be going against the majority of reviews on this book, but I actually liked it and enjoyed the style of writing. By 'like' I mean that I found it an interesting study in teenage life. It brought out the sometimes nonsensical way teenagers view the world, where they themselves and their feelings are paramount. It shows a point at which teenagers haven't yet developed that ability to necessarily look at the wider picture or take a helicopter view of life to see the ramifications of their actions. I am not saying ALL teenagers are like this but it was an interesting study. As a child who had 'older parents' compared to my peers I found the comparisons the author made between the families poignant. I would say that this is not just a teen book but one that adults can take certain nuances from as a study of emergent adults. I think it reflected the era well and the prejudices that existed. It was also a thought provoking profile of a family dealing with a loved one who had dementia. An easy read with plenty to think about.
June 28, 2014
I found this book in a bargain bin and I got it because the cover seemed interesting. It's about two British high school girls who come to be mixed up in a crime (though no one else even realizes a crime has taken place until many years later) after one of them starts dating a much older, sleazeball-type man. There wasn't really much mystery to this story since everything is mostly laid out in the beginning. It's really a character study of how these girls, Chloe and Laura, interacted with each other (Chloe was very manipulative and kind of a sociopath, really), and how Laura interacted with her father (who suffered from some sort of dementia) and her mother (who was too wrapped up in taking care of the father to show any concern for her daughter). It was a dark story but one of the better books I have read in awhile.
August 10, 2013
Move over James Patterson, Jenn Ashworth has come to take your place. In her second novel, Ashworth showcases her talent for dark, suspenseful, detailed writing once again, reminding her readers exactly why we love her. Ashworth captures the nuances of teenage girls with perfection. Every secret, every doubt, every biting remark sucks you into this world, leaving you on the edge of your seat wondering what is going to happen next. And that, I must say, is the genius of Cold Light. Ashworth teases you, dropping bits of information, just small enough to intrigue us, just small enough to keep us guessing until the end. When the end comes, Ashworth's darkness is really revealed. Nothing is as expected. Cold Light will leave you speechless.
July 27, 2012
I had a hard time getting into this one at first. The writing and language were different than what I was use to, however once I got into the story and got use to the flashbacks and got a real feel for the story and characters, it did get better and I found myself getting drawn into the story.
This definitely isn't your typical innocent YA novel. This one slowly draws you in and piece by piece, memory by memory lets you into the real story. What the characters were really like and what really happened that fateful day.
Nothing is quite what it seems and no one is an innocent as they appear.
Truly this was cleverly done.
This definitely isn't your typical innocent YA novel. This one slowly draws you in and piece by piece, memory by memory lets you into the real story. What the characters were really like and what really happened that fateful day.
Nothing is quite what it seems and no one is an innocent as they appear.
Truly this was cleverly done.
June 4, 2011
if I ever cried because of books this book would have made me cry. not at the very end but at the part right before the epilogue.
This is an interesting book, it's less a crime novel and more the deconstruction of a crime. The book is about events that happened 10 years before the book takes place. It's about how what we know is a lie, and it's about blame.
Above anything else it's probably mostly about growing up or not growing up. it's a really beautiful book. I don't want to say much else about it, but there it is for what it's worth
This is an interesting book, it's less a crime novel and more the deconstruction of a crime. The book is about events that happened 10 years before the book takes place. It's about how what we know is a lie, and it's about blame.
Above anything else it's probably mostly about growing up or not growing up. it's a really beautiful book. I don't want to say much else about it, but there it is for what it's worth
February 17, 2013
I wanted to like this book but didn't. The idea of the story held some promise but it never came to fruition. I seldom give up on a book but at some point I thought about it; however, I wanted to get to the reveal out of a slight curiosity about the secrets.
October 26, 2017
Well, I agree with many of the comments on the book's cover: yes it is indeed a page turner, yes it is a haunting read & yes, somehow it is an uncomfortable read but sort of in a good way!
An interesting read, with the attitudes & loyalties - often misguided - of teenage girls very well depicted.
An interesting read, with the attitudes & loyalties - often misguided - of teenage girls very well depicted.
November 16, 2025
I found this book when I was fourteen from a neighborhood library, and now I've read it again, nine years later. There's something quite meta about this experience for me -- the plotline finds 24 year old Lola Webb, recluse, looking back upon her...tumultuous childhood friendships with the long dead Chloe. Cold Light is a very intentionally disturbing book, that requires a lot of stomach to read. Ashworth's depiction of the frustrations of petty adolescent friendships, adolescent morals, parental disconnect, etc. are sometimes too harsh to process, and I had to put down this book in the middle. It's a disturbingly accurate depiction of guilt and shame. You won't enjoy this novel if you prefer having characters to root for. You'll get angry at the characters and then feel bad because, well, they're fourteen.
At the time, because I was fourteen, I thought this book was really cool and grunge and frankly missed a lot of the themes. I thought it was so cool how all the kids were drinking and smoking cigarettes. Not sure if that's a British thing. Now that I am basically the same age as Lola, I can look back and realize just how genuinely fucked up the events are. The Polaroid subplot, for example -- I didn't even realize
I think people might, on first read, find Ashworth's depiction of Chloe to be pigeonholed and frustrating. For much of the book, Chloe is more or less a bitchy, bratty teenage girl. Then she becomes a blank slate, something for other people to reflect their own desires upon. Sometimes her friendship with Lola borders on homoerotic. But most teenagers are still finding themselves, and are really representations of the potential we think we find in them.
So I think it's a great piece of literature. Whether or not it is an enjoyable piece is something else entirely. Laura spends a lot of the book grappling with guilt, with her own pettiness, with jealousy and paranoia (all of which are very realistically depicted.) If you've grappled with sexual assault, you'll either find this book extremely triggering or cathartic in a way because of its extreme realism. I think Cold Light ends on a hope spot. As hopeful as you can get.
At the time, because I was fourteen, I thought this book was really cool and grunge and frankly missed a lot of the themes. I thought it was so cool how all the kids were drinking and smoking cigarettes. Not sure if that's a British thing. Now that I am basically the same age as Lola, I can look back and realize just how genuinely fucked up the events are. The Polaroid subplot, for example -- I didn't even realize
I think people might, on first read, find Ashworth's depiction of Chloe to be pigeonholed and frustrating. For much of the book, Chloe is more or less a bitchy, bratty teenage girl. Then she becomes a blank slate, something for other people to reflect their own desires upon. Sometimes her friendship with Lola borders on homoerotic. But most teenagers are still finding themselves, and are really representations of the potential we think we find in them.
So I think it's a great piece of literature. Whether or not it is an enjoyable piece is something else entirely. Laura spends a lot of the book grappling with guilt, with her own pettiness, with jealousy and paranoia (all of which are very realistically depicted.) If you've grappled with sexual assault, you'll either find this book extremely triggering or cathartic in a way because of its extreme realism. I think Cold Light ends on a hope spot. As hopeful as you can get.
February 7, 2019
Popular, beautiful Chloe and self-conscious, overweight Lola are fourteen-years-old and have been friends for a long time. However, the intensity of their uneven relationship starts to change, first when Chloe seems to prefer Emma, and then when she starts going out with Carl, a young man in his twenties. When Chloe and Carl are found drowned on Valentine’s Day, in what is assumed to be a suicide pact, Lola’s world changes forever. Ten years later, Lola, now known as Laura, has cut herself off from family and friends and is working as a cleaner in a local shopping centre. A long-running media campaign has “turned Chloe into a saint”, making Laura reflect that "In death, 'wilful' becomes 'spirited' and 'bully' becomes 'stubborn'". Enough money has now been raised to build a memorial to Chloe and when a body is uncovered during a well-attended ceremony to begin excavations, Laura is sure she knows whose it is.
The story is told through Laura’s reflections on her troubled childhood, the events which occurred during that final summer of friendship, the months which led up to Chloe’s death and the intervening years during which she has struggled with her feelings about the part she played in what happened. I thought that the author’s exploration of the intensity female adolescent friendships – the jealousies, the envy, the “cattiness”, an obsession with appearances etc – was powerfully insightful, as was her understanding of the isolation felt by a child living with a mentally-ill parent. She sympathetically, and convincingly captured Laura’s feelings of guilt and shame, the effects that these corrosive feelings had had on her life, and her search for redemption.
There are two other key factors which are central to the story’s development – the fact that a flasher is making regular appearances around town, making all the teenage girls feel fearful, and the anxiety which is constantly being fuelled by a “celebrity” reporter from the local television news programme. The paranoia, the suspicion, the false accusations, the targeting of a local man with Down’s Syndrome adds to the dark nature of the story-telling and evokes a convincing picture of tight-knit, insular community which is quick to judge and slow to forgive.
This is a dark and disturbing mixture of a “coming-of-age” story and a gradual revelation of an unsolved disappearance. I thought that the story-telling had many strengths, especially in its observations of the intensity and sheer angst of teenage girls, its powerful sense of time and place and its portrayal of how suspicion can be all too easily generated by provocative, irresponsible reporting. However, I found the pacing very uneven, leading to a lack of any sustained tension in the plotting and to me, eventually, feeling a distinct lack of interest in the outcome!
The story is told through Laura’s reflections on her troubled childhood, the events which occurred during that final summer of friendship, the months which led up to Chloe’s death and the intervening years during which she has struggled with her feelings about the part she played in what happened. I thought that the author’s exploration of the intensity female adolescent friendships – the jealousies, the envy, the “cattiness”, an obsession with appearances etc – was powerfully insightful, as was her understanding of the isolation felt by a child living with a mentally-ill parent. She sympathetically, and convincingly captured Laura’s feelings of guilt and shame, the effects that these corrosive feelings had had on her life, and her search for redemption.
There are two other key factors which are central to the story’s development – the fact that a flasher is making regular appearances around town, making all the teenage girls feel fearful, and the anxiety which is constantly being fuelled by a “celebrity” reporter from the local television news programme. The paranoia, the suspicion, the false accusations, the targeting of a local man with Down’s Syndrome adds to the dark nature of the story-telling and evokes a convincing picture of tight-knit, insular community which is quick to judge and slow to forgive.
This is a dark and disturbing mixture of a “coming-of-age” story and a gradual revelation of an unsolved disappearance. I thought that the story-telling had many strengths, especially in its observations of the intensity and sheer angst of teenage girls, its powerful sense of time and place and its portrayal of how suspicion can be all too easily generated by provocative, irresponsible reporting. However, I found the pacing very uneven, leading to a lack of any sustained tension in the plotting and to me, eventually, feeling a distinct lack of interest in the outcome!
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