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Between the Light and Me: A Memoir of Beauty and Violence
Between the Light and Me
is a stirring exploration of the ways in which darkness and light bleed together in both the world and the human heart.Just one month before September 11, Kathleen Kilcup enlisted in the US Army with all the fervent idealism of an untested teenager. Between the Light and Me is her unflinching account of encountering violence―both in the military and beyond―and a desperate, sometimes ill-conceived search for God that sustained her through addiction and trauma, on the long road to true freedom.Tracing her singular path from a juvenile detention center in Utah to linguistic training in California, from a wildland firefighter crew in Tahoe to a lavender farm in Oregon, Kilcup explores the entanglement of violence and beauty in her own life as she hungered for something genuine while starving herself and getting blackout drunk. “I wanted something real and painful and beautiful, the mystery underneath the mystery. I wanted the truth,” she writes. Written with a poet’s uncanny knack for the luminous detail, Between the Light and Me is a riveting portrait of modern spiritual hunger manifest in barracks, chapels, bars, and church basements where communion tastes like stale coffee sipped from Styrofoam cups. This is memoir as spiritual investigation, written for anyone who has ever wondered how grace might find us in the places where we least expect it.“For a time, I lived in a midnight zone. A place of pressure and lightlessness. What I mean to say is, this is a story about being human, born into a violent world and carrying violence inside ourselves―and in that darkness, how hungry we grow for light.”
- GenresMemoir
216 pages, Hardcover
Published October 8, 2026
About the author
Kathleen Kilcup
2 books12 followersKathleen Kilcup spent five years serving in the US Army as a Russian linguist. She holds an MFA in poetry from UC Riverside and an MA in religion and arts from Yale. Her poetry and essays have appeared in or are forthcoming from Commonweal, Tin House, Image, Salon, Western Humanities Review, and elsewhere. She writes The Mess on Substack and lives with her family in Oklahoma City. She is the author of Between the Light and Me: A Memoir of Beauty and Violence.
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Displaying 1 - 29 of 29 reviews
Review of advance copy received from Author
A beautiful and spiritual story of pain, violence, loss, and God’s love. The prose is rich, the story is moving, and the steady reminder of God’s love is refreshing. I highly recommend it.
Review of advance copy received from Publisher
I hesitated when Kathleen asked me to read and review an advance copy of her new book. We've been "friends" on Facebook for a while, I knew she was a writer and in recovery. I've worked with addicts (and former addicts) for decades. I have heard and read a lot of addiction/recovery "drunkalogues" and "personal testimonies". That said, I'm always fascinated by people's stories of how they got from "here" to "there" (and back, and forth). But, I hesitated because she asked that I give an honest review and frankly I didn't want to risk having to do that for a friend (yes, I am slightly co-dependent).
I am glad I took the risk. It took me a while to read the book. But not because it was easy to put down or abandon for days at a time. Of course there were commonalities with all the other travelers on the paths of addictions- family dysfunction, choices that led to dark and violent circumstances, the propping up that became a scaffold, the abyss of shame, the momentary and exhausting resolutions abandoned, the distance of the prodigality, the longing for just a dim glimpse of the porch-light of the Father's house to step toward, and The Embrace of the Father and of her family. I thought I could just skim over the "No sh*t, there I was..." kind of stuff I'd heard hundreds of times and breeze through paragraphs or chapters and know her story. But I could not.
I could not breeze through even one paragraph or sentence for fear I'd miss the poetry of her telling both in the story's structure and the words telling it. There are writers that I read because they speak in poetry. Frederick Buechner, Walter Wangerin, Jr., Louise Erdrich, Mark Helprin, Anthony Doerr, Ocean Vuong... I often stop and wonder how they created such a sentence for a common human event out of ordinary words. Kathleen's descriptions and ruminations of her social and physical surroundings and her introspective spiritual landscapes forbade me to just skim over her words. I discovered why in the latter pages of the book.
Her's is a harrowing story of physical and spiritual violence done to her and to herself, told without tragic melodrama or "drunkalogue sensationalism" but with a clear eye, incisive self-awareness, an unguarded voice, and an ear for beautiful words. All those are a gift, but the greatest gift offered in her story is hope.
I am glad I took the risk. It took me a while to read the book. But not because it was easy to put down or abandon for days at a time. Of course there were commonalities with all the other travelers on the paths of addictions- family dysfunction, choices that led to dark and violent circumstances, the propping up that became a scaffold, the abyss of shame, the momentary and exhausting resolutions abandoned, the distance of the prodigality, the longing for just a dim glimpse of the porch-light of the Father's house to step toward, and The Embrace of the Father and of her family. I thought I could just skim over the "No sh*t, there I was..." kind of stuff I'd heard hundreds of times and breeze through paragraphs or chapters and know her story. But I could not.
I could not breeze through even one paragraph or sentence for fear I'd miss the poetry of her telling both in the story's structure and the words telling it. There are writers that I read because they speak in poetry. Frederick Buechner, Walter Wangerin, Jr., Louise Erdrich, Mark Helprin, Anthony Doerr, Ocean Vuong... I often stop and wonder how they created such a sentence for a common human event out of ordinary words. Kathleen's descriptions and ruminations of her social and physical surroundings and her introspective spiritual landscapes forbade me to just skim over her words. I discovered why in the latter pages of the book.
Her's is a harrowing story of physical and spiritual violence done to her and to herself, told without tragic melodrama or "drunkalogue sensationalism" but with a clear eye, incisive self-awareness, an unguarded voice, and an ear for beautiful words. All those are a gift, but the greatest gift offered in her story is hope.
Review of advance copy received from Publisher
It would be a shame to say that Kathleen’s story is simply about military service, addiction, or even spiritual conversion. Interest in those topics would be good reason to pick up this book, but what Kate captures most is the deep yearning of every human heart – a yearning few of us can put into words. (And oh, such words!)
I’d say this book is about what it means to be hungry and how hunger ultimately leads to slavery or freedom. And while we all share this hunger, somehow, a person could easily live her whole life hiding, or becoming deaf to, what she longs for the most.
And that’s what makes this book so gripping and so unusual. I’ve read memoirs where subtle blaming of circumstances or people is passed off as honesty, but Kate doesn’t take such an easy route. And because she doesn’t, she invites the reader to view his or her own life with the same accountability and, ultimately, love.
While reading, I couldn’t help asking myself what it actually looks like to love God. And perhaps more urgently, whether I am hungry enough.
Kate is a poet so it is no surprise that the book reads like a poem (truth and beauty guide the narrative, not a forced agenda). As such, the book is drenched in surrender: surrender to the many interpretations out of her control, and the truths her story reveals about herself and about the reader. But most importantly, surrender to the love of our heavenly father, who brings us to awareness of our hunger precisely because he longs to feed us.
Memoir is one of my favorite genres, and this one stands apart from the crowd in its language, insight, beauty, and humility. I’ll be returning to Kate’s beautiful, probing book again and again.
I’d say this book is about what it means to be hungry and how hunger ultimately leads to slavery or freedom. And while we all share this hunger, somehow, a person could easily live her whole life hiding, or becoming deaf to, what she longs for the most.
And that’s what makes this book so gripping and so unusual. I’ve read memoirs where subtle blaming of circumstances or people is passed off as honesty, but Kate doesn’t take such an easy route. And because she doesn’t, she invites the reader to view his or her own life with the same accountability and, ultimately, love.
While reading, I couldn’t help asking myself what it actually looks like to love God. And perhaps more urgently, whether I am hungry enough.
Kate is a poet so it is no surprise that the book reads like a poem (truth and beauty guide the narrative, not a forced agenda). As such, the book is drenched in surrender: surrender to the many interpretations out of her control, and the truths her story reveals about herself and about the reader. But most importantly, surrender to the love of our heavenly father, who brings us to awareness of our hunger precisely because he longs to feed us.
Memoir is one of my favorite genres, and this one stands apart from the crowd in its language, insight, beauty, and humility. I’ll be returning to Kate’s beautiful, probing book again and again.
Review of advance copy received from Publisher
A thoughtful and honest exploration of addiction, mental health, recovery, and reality.
Between the Light and Me: A Memoir of Beauty and Violence is a memoir that doesn't seem interested in offering an easy recovery narrative—and that's part of what makes it compelling.
Kathleen Kilcup explores addiction, mental illness, trauma, recovery, and the complicated relationship we have with reality. One of the ideas that particularly stood out is her description of addiction as a dysfunctional relationship with reality: wanting life to be different from what it actually is.
Her perspective on recovery is equally compelling. Rather than presenting recovery as one dramatic turning point, she describes change as emerging when pain, willingness, and opportunity come together. That feels much closer to the reality of recovery for many people than the familiar story of a single moment that changes everything.
The memoir also explores the tension between beauty and violence. Kilcup doesn't suggest that suffering itself is beautiful. Instead, she considers how experiencing difficult things can sometimes change the way we perceive and appreciate beauty.
The title, drawn from Emily Dickinson, provides a fitting metaphor for the book and for the experience of addiction and recovery.
This is a memoir that invites reflection rather than providing easy answers. It asks readers to consider what happens when we stop trying to escape reality and begin learning how to live within it.
Between the Light and Me: A Memoir of Beauty and Violence is a memoir that doesn't seem interested in offering an easy recovery narrative—and that's part of what makes it compelling.
Kathleen Kilcup explores addiction, mental illness, trauma, recovery, and the complicated relationship we have with reality. One of the ideas that particularly stood out is her description of addiction as a dysfunctional relationship with reality: wanting life to be different from what it actually is.
Her perspective on recovery is equally compelling. Rather than presenting recovery as one dramatic turning point, she describes change as emerging when pain, willingness, and opportunity come together. That feels much closer to the reality of recovery for many people than the familiar story of a single moment that changes everything.
The memoir also explores the tension between beauty and violence. Kilcup doesn't suggest that suffering itself is beautiful. Instead, she considers how experiencing difficult things can sometimes change the way we perceive and appreciate beauty.
The title, drawn from Emily Dickinson, provides a fitting metaphor for the book and for the experience of addiction and recovery.
This is a memoir that invites reflection rather than providing easy answers. It asks readers to consider what happens when we stop trying to escape reality and begin learning how to live within it.
Review of advance copy received from Author
This literary memoir leaps through the times and spaces of a young poet's life -- from Utah to U.S. Army barracks in Germany, from college classrooms to the frontiers of wilderness fire fighting. Reflecting on formative years when she was drunk on beauty and aching for God, the author wrings a lyrical redemption out of her experiences of addiction, dysfunction and suffering. The reader's journey with her is harrowing and unforgettable.
In a scatterplot of books to which this memoir bears a family resemblance, you would likely find Between the Light and Me situated among such searing, truth-seeking memoirs as:
H is for Hawk, by Helen McDonald
Acedia and Me, by Kathleen Norris
Autobiography of a Face, by Lucy Greeley
Lit, by Mary Karr
Wild, by Cheryl Strayed
What You Have Heard is True, by Carolyn Forche
Drinking: A Love Story, by Caroline Knapp
My Bright Abyss, Christian Wiman
And, of course, Confessions by St. Augustine
Kilcup's book belongs on a shelf with these and other literary works that look squarely at reality, however painful the view may be, in order to see the light that suffuses it.
In a scatterplot of books to which this memoir bears a family resemblance, you would likely find Between the Light and Me situated among such searing, truth-seeking memoirs as:
H is for Hawk, by Helen McDonald
Acedia and Me, by Kathleen Norris
Autobiography of a Face, by Lucy Greeley
Lit, by Mary Karr
Wild, by Cheryl Strayed
What You Have Heard is True, by Carolyn Forche
Drinking: A Love Story, by Caroline Knapp
My Bright Abyss, Christian Wiman
And, of course, Confessions by St. Augustine
Kilcup's book belongs on a shelf with these and other literary works that look squarely at reality, however painful the view may be, in order to see the light that suffuses it.
Review of advance copy received from NetGalley
"When the rigors of self-mastery bellied up, poetry arrived like a raft. Against despair, it lifted me, tilting my head and there was the sky always breathing and new, the light blurring clouds and their incomprehensible song."
A friend sent me a poem by Kate before I was introduced to her. I remember exactly where I was sitting when I opened the email. I read, and I woke up inside, though I didn't know I had been sleeping. I wasn't sure if I could be friends with someone so very awake and courageous. But I hoped to.
Reading this memoir ten years later felt the same way. A different genre, but the same Kathleen, with her open heart and sparking mind. Vivid story after vivid story. I am captivated.
The midnight Easter Vigil service at church starts with the whole church dark and grieving, until the priests light the fire in the back, and one by one, we light each other's candles, passing the light row by row up the nave to the altar. This book feels like that service, Kate sharing with me the story of the dark night of her soul, and then offering to me the flame that she's been given.
A friend sent me a poem by Kate before I was introduced to her. I remember exactly where I was sitting when I opened the email. I read, and I woke up inside, though I didn't know I had been sleeping. I wasn't sure if I could be friends with someone so very awake and courageous. But I hoped to.
Reading this memoir ten years later felt the same way. A different genre, but the same Kathleen, with her open heart and sparking mind. Vivid story after vivid story. I am captivated.
The midnight Easter Vigil service at church starts with the whole church dark and grieving, until the priests light the fire in the back, and one by one, we light each other's candles, passing the light row by row up the nave to the altar. This book feels like that service, Kate sharing with me the story of the dark night of her soul, and then offering to me the flame that she's been given.
Review of advance copy received from NetGalley
Between the Light and Me stands out as a rare autobiographical retelling marked by generosity and the spiritual skill of truth-telling. Kathleen's story is the kind that almost demands to be written down, but her memoir is more than a series of extraordinary events. Instead, this is a story that captures the mystery surrounding love, suffering, redemption, and beauty. Her faith hovers over the waters, sometimes subtle and sometimes the paramount message on the page.
In many memoirs, the things that stick with you are the facts of the story, the victories, the trauma. Having sat with Kathleen's memoir for about a week now, it's some of the small details that I continue to mull over — chocolate bars, sea creatures, seeds, popcorn at a house blessing. You may come into this book expecting one thing and come out with all sorts of gorgeously strange moments that hold deep truths. It's the kind of storytelling that invites you to look closer at your own life and see those hidden cracks where the light may have been pouring in all along.
In many memoirs, the things that stick with you are the facts of the story, the victories, the trauma. Having sat with Kathleen's memoir for about a week now, it's some of the small details that I continue to mull over — chocolate bars, sea creatures, seeds, popcorn at a house blessing. You may come into this book expecting one thing and come out with all sorts of gorgeously strange moments that hold deep truths. It's the kind of storytelling that invites you to look closer at your own life and see those hidden cracks where the light may have been pouring in all along.
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July 24, 2026Absolutely gorgeous. This is a singular unsparing honest dark redemptive book, the best book I've read all year. Kilcup writes about herself without self-pity. Her prose is bathed in light even when she is in the darkness. This isn't a conventional memoir, clawing its way towards redemption. She is never merely a victim but shows us how she participated in her downfall with flashes of humor and astringent self-knowledge. From the very first pages until the end, my own life felt better illuminated because I got to live for a while in the lyrical light of this beautifully written book. Heart-rending, heart-healing and true. I thought I didn’t like memoirs. I loved this one.
Review of advance copy received from NetGalley
This is beautiful book about God reaching one woman, and all of us, in our darkness and self-destruction. It is a deeply honest and insightful retrospective about ugliness and the hard realities of life in this world. But it is mostly about the redemption of beauty: the light of Christ, poetry, the natural world, and good human beings helping others out of darkness.
Review of advance copy received from Author
No writer who wants to write about hope and redemption can do so without writing a lot about suffering. That is, if the writer wants to produce something more than thin, sentimental treacle. Kathleen Kilcup writes harrowingly of suffering and near-despair, and in doing so she writes meaningfully about hope and redemption.
Between the Light and Me is a memoir about addiction, the military, and the literary life. Refreshingly, there is very little playing of the blame game in this book. The origins of Kilcup’s problems are both more complex and more simple than we often see in addiction memoirs. More complex because, rather than one single cause such as a dysfunctional family, Kilcup’s addiction and other mental-health struggles are rooted in a number of personal and social dynamics. More simple, because Kilcup insists that all of her struggles are ultimately of a spiritual nature. The complexity gives the book nuance. The simplicity gives it weight and grandeur.
Moving backward and forward through time, Kilcup slowly brings her whole story into narrative focus. This not-strictly-linear approach invites us into a more intimate sharing of memory with the author, since, rather than simply receiving the polished narrative of her life, we are joining in the act of memory with her. Memory does not present itself as a neat line from our birth to today. We’re all “unstuck in time” inside our own heads. Kilcup’s narrative strategy mirrors how we experience personal memory and thus poignantly conveys to the reader not just what happened to her but also how the past continues to live with her, both as something haunting and as something redeemed.
Reading this book, I found myself invested in the narrator’s story and increasingly fond of her flawed but loving family. Kilcup is generous even to those who have wronged her, and I don’t suspect it is easy for a memoirist to relinquish the opportunity for vengeance. That Kilcup treats everyone involved with some dignity and compassion adds to the book’s atmosphere of grace, an air of redemption that is present throughout the book not despite but rather because of its difficult subject matter.
I was truly impressed by this book. The prose is poetic and fluid. The storytelling is superb. This is a memoir told with tenderness and frankness. I’m glad the author survived to tell her story.
Between the Light and Me is a memoir about addiction, the military, and the literary life. Refreshingly, there is very little playing of the blame game in this book. The origins of Kilcup’s problems are both more complex and more simple than we often see in addiction memoirs. More complex because, rather than one single cause such as a dysfunctional family, Kilcup’s addiction and other mental-health struggles are rooted in a number of personal and social dynamics. More simple, because Kilcup insists that all of her struggles are ultimately of a spiritual nature. The complexity gives the book nuance. The simplicity gives it weight and grandeur.
Moving backward and forward through time, Kilcup slowly brings her whole story into narrative focus. This not-strictly-linear approach invites us into a more intimate sharing of memory with the author, since, rather than simply receiving the polished narrative of her life, we are joining in the act of memory with her. Memory does not present itself as a neat line from our birth to today. We’re all “unstuck in time” inside our own heads. Kilcup’s narrative strategy mirrors how we experience personal memory and thus poignantly conveys to the reader not just what happened to her but also how the past continues to live with her, both as something haunting and as something redeemed.
Reading this book, I found myself invested in the narrator’s story and increasingly fond of her flawed but loving family. Kilcup is generous even to those who have wronged her, and I don’t suspect it is easy for a memoirist to relinquish the opportunity for vengeance. That Kilcup treats everyone involved with some dignity and compassion adds to the book’s atmosphere of grace, an air of redemption that is present throughout the book not despite but rather because of its difficult subject matter.
I was truly impressed by this book. The prose is poetic and fluid. The storytelling is superb. This is a memoir told with tenderness and frankness. I’m glad the author survived to tell her story.
September 8, 2026
Whether or not you’re in recovery, please, please read this book. You will weep. You will rejoice. You will identify.
Kilcup’s epic battle with the dragons of addiction repeatedly ends in failure. She masters Russian in the army, publishes poetry in graduate school and fights fires in northern California. But her achievements, high intellect and willpower cannot save her from drunkenness, isolation, demoralization and squalor. She loves God and seeks his light. But no matter how hard she tries, she falls. Then, slowly, miraculously, Job-like, she is released. Next comes surrender, redemption and the blessings of the sweetest of gifts: sobriety, love, marriage, motherhood. God.
Kilcup’s sumptuous descriptions, savage self-analysis and riveting story will drive you through her book. By the time she meets her future husband in a laundromat at Yale, you will be reading through tears.
Kilcup’s epic battle with the dragons of addiction repeatedly ends in failure. She masters Russian in the army, publishes poetry in graduate school and fights fires in northern California. But her achievements, high intellect and willpower cannot save her from drunkenness, isolation, demoralization and squalor. She loves God and seeks his light. But no matter how hard she tries, she falls. Then, slowly, miraculously, Job-like, she is released. Next comes surrender, redemption and the blessings of the sweetest of gifts: sobriety, love, marriage, motherhood. God.
Kilcup’s sumptuous descriptions, savage self-analysis and riveting story will drive you through her book. By the time she meets her future husband in a laundromat at Yale, you will be reading through tears.
July 15, 2026
Kate’s memoir is a work of art that paints with words the despair that can come from anger, self consciousness, self absorption, and people-pleasing tendencies can bring.
This modern retelling of the prodigal daughter, is very relatable to those of us wrestle with anger and the tension between knowing of how much our Heavenly Father loves us, and the grip of sin.
I appreciated her use of metaphors to give the reader visualize bee her experiences with violence, her awe of God’s creation, and her connections with the lives of saints. One of my favorite parts of the book was learning about Saint Mary of Egypt, her struggles to distinguish between holy and unholy hungers, and how difficult the path to repentance is.
This modern retelling of the prodigal daughter, is very relatable to those of us wrestle with anger and the tension between knowing of how much our Heavenly Father loves us, and the grip of sin.
I appreciated her use of metaphors to give the reader visualize bee her experiences with violence, her awe of God’s creation, and her connections with the lives of saints. One of my favorite parts of the book was learning about Saint Mary of Egypt, her struggles to distinguish between holy and unholy hungers, and how difficult the path to repentance is.
Review of advance copy received from Author
Deft, heartbreaking and important. I devoured this book. Am in awe of Kilcup's ability to handle such brutal topics with delicacy, truth and humor. Read this book!
Read
August 10, 2026One of the most honest, vulnerable reflections of what it means to find one's footing in faith that I've ever read. A poignant and merciful mirror.
October 5, 2026
The older I get the more I happen upon beliefs left over from convoluted childhood faith: beliefs like if you were still sinning or if you were wrapped up in a sin, if you were pursuing something wrong or dark or if you were losing a battle, then you were not really God’s. Like if we’re not searching for God we’re not being sought by him. That’s wrong.
It probably comes from having a clean life. I had a clean life; Kathleen didn’t. I love this book for showing me God pursuing and knowing and working in and loving her, her life so different than mine. I have the urge to say I believe her. I believe God loved her and she loved God when she drank, when she threw up, when she hurt and got hurt. Over and over and over and over, God really was there. He doesn’t hold unclean people at arm’s length. He doesn’t clean them in the blink of an eye. I don’t know why. By the end of the book I wept when Kathleen had a simple, beautiful, human life, when she was alive and present for the simplicity and the beauty and even the pain. Because on the other hand, we have the same exact story: woman learns to live caught up in the life of the divine.
All my favorite art tells me this same thing, what Kathleen’s book also told me: despite it all, it is good to live as a human and know God.
It probably comes from having a clean life. I had a clean life; Kathleen didn’t. I love this book for showing me God pursuing and knowing and working in and loving her, her life so different than mine. I have the urge to say I believe her. I believe God loved her and she loved God when she drank, when she threw up, when she hurt and got hurt. Over and over and over and over, God really was there. He doesn’t hold unclean people at arm’s length. He doesn’t clean them in the blink of an eye. I don’t know why. By the end of the book I wept when Kathleen had a simple, beautiful, human life, when she was alive and present for the simplicity and the beauty and even the pain. Because on the other hand, we have the same exact story: woman learns to live caught up in the life of the divine.
All my favorite art tells me this same thing, what Kathleen’s book also told me: despite it all, it is good to live as a human and know God.
October 30, 2026
Brutally honest and lovely. I wanted more of the last quarter of this book. And I want more books like this!
Review of advance copy received from Author
An unadulterated, adolescent confessional. Kathleen unveils her inner most thoughts and uncomfortable truths. What she describes is so relatable, yet challenges the status quo. It will keep you engaged to better understand yourself. The interesting way we strive in our lives to create a reconciliation with parental mistakes. A spiritual inquiry into life’s mundane experiences. It’s an age old tale of temptation and she tells it well. How we start with an innocent yearning but some soul holes are harder to fill or made larger by accidental affliction.
Review of advance copy
I met Kate in the Army. We landed as holdovers together, but she shipped slightly before me to her basic training unit. I knew when I met her that the army wasn’t her place. Not that she couldn’t physically handle it or find the resilience to endure the relentless BS the army throws at you for no reason. Kate was too damn smart for the army, too much herself and the army wasn’t gonna fix that for her and I knew it, but she didn’t. I didn't know what the right fit was, but I felt that it was going to involve writing and a classroom someday. The army doesn't really make room for any level of cerebral anything. My deepest sense with that special soul was to try and get her through the BS so she could follow the path that was hers and not one she felt compelled to or for which she felt ‘assigned’ rather than chosen. Little did I know she was a suffering soul when she reached me and continued to be while in the army. I didn’t know Kate, but you are and always will be that special soul that I keep close to my heart.
Yes this book is about her journey through some of the darkest moments in her life, but it is also, in my opinion, the journey of an ADHD soul who from the minute she was aware of human interaction, guessing about the age of 4, felt that she lived on the fringes of society, never fully being accepted because in the pit of her stomach sat a loud and screaming shame that said ‘you are not good enough.’ I know, I struggle with it every day. But what makes Kate’s book different is that she lays that shame out there, dissects it, strips it of all parts ugly, and turns it back on itself to find beauty and peace and unconditional love. Resilience is an incredible trait of ADHD and man Kate has it in spades, but what this book shows in all the raw and barren wastelands of her darkest moments, is a resilience that did find that light, dusted herself off, shook out her beautiful red hair, stared down the ugliness of her past and said ‘I don’t think so!’
You have always had a way with words my friend, but these words hit deep in more ways than one! An important read for those struggling with ADHD and addiction and an important understanding of what the other side of an incredibly painful and sometimes violent journey can look like!
Yes this book is about her journey through some of the darkest moments in her life, but it is also, in my opinion, the journey of an ADHD soul who from the minute she was aware of human interaction, guessing about the age of 4, felt that she lived on the fringes of society, never fully being accepted because in the pit of her stomach sat a loud and screaming shame that said ‘you are not good enough.’ I know, I struggle with it every day. But what makes Kate’s book different is that she lays that shame out there, dissects it, strips it of all parts ugly, and turns it back on itself to find beauty and peace and unconditional love. Resilience is an incredible trait of ADHD and man Kate has it in spades, but what this book shows in all the raw and barren wastelands of her darkest moments, is a resilience that did find that light, dusted herself off, shook out her beautiful red hair, stared down the ugliness of her past and said ‘I don’t think so!’
You have always had a way with words my friend, but these words hit deep in more ways than one! An important read for those struggling with ADHD and addiction and an important understanding of what the other side of an incredibly painful and sometimes violent journey can look like!
Review of advance copy received from Author
This is an exceptionally good book, confessional, contemplative, and confessing, reminiscent of Annie Dillard's best, but with a sharper, clearer edge. It is worth reading more than once.
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August 6, 2026A human life is not linear, and neither is human memory. "Between the Light and Me" weaves through the creation and destruction required for our true selves to emerge as beautifully as one could hope. I found myself amused, shocked, comforted, and challenged at various points, sometimes all at once. The intimacy and strength of this book will stay with me long after I close the cover.
Review of advance copy received from Author
If you're looking for a book, this'll do.
October 17, 2026
I rarely take the time to write book reviews. But this book is stunning. If you enjoy brutally honest spiritual memoirs, and if you appreciate quality writing, Kathleen's book meets both of those standards. It is a literarily rich memoir, and it is unflinching in a view of humanity's sin-sick struggles that feels rare these days. Highly recommend.
October 10, 2026
I’m in awe of the way Kate paints pictures and beautifully articulates her intimate world in so many seasons of life. It’s radically honest, unintentionally poetic and incredibly fascinating. For anyone who may be struggling with addiction, an eating disorder, their faith, or wanting a relationship with Christ but perhaps thinks they’re too broken or flawed to be met by grace…read this book.
October 4, 2026
Brilliant, heartbreaking, real and beautifully written. A testament to the human condition and spirit. I could not put this book down and was captivated from page one.
Review of advance copy received from Publisher
Beautifully written. Fearless. An example of how God never gives up on us, even when we repeatedly try to destroy ourselves.
Review of advance copy received from Author
Raw, gritty, lonely…. Utterly captures the desperation, mindlessness, and cylindrical nature of shame that closes around drunks. Reads like a story told over cups of coffee in a kitchen across months of afternoons,
a true memoir. The intersections of faith and addiction, God and fear, love and hate, sick and well, all explored thoroughly. Incredible.
a true memoir. The intersections of faith and addiction, God and fear, love and hate, sick and well, all explored thoroughly. Incredible.
Review of advance copy received from NetGalley
I sometimes wonder if I am different. If I feel too deeply when others just float on the surface. I connect with the memoir of Kathleen Kilcup because it confirms that others feel deeply as well. Her memoir jumps around like a ping pong ball, bouncing between memories. There is a tempo to this book. This book is poetry. The memories are all stacking like a deck of cards and showing the compounding weight of each memory. There are moments of beauty, and some of regret and shame. She shares her struggle with alcoholism and her struggle with unhealthy relationships. Through it all, her relationship with God was present. Sometimes quiet, sometimes loud, but always there. A different path could have been taken, with better choices and less trust. But that would not have led Kathleen to her happy ending. My favorite quote from her sponsor, "Even though it's dark, unbelievably dark right now, and you can't see your way out, if you can stay sober today, you will walk in the light again. I promise." I find beauty in her journey, like an old home movie being shown against a wall in a darkened room. Thank you, Kathleen Kilcup, for sharing your incredibly private experiences. It was beautifully written and deeply felt. Thank you to Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company and NetGalley for the ARC. It was truly an honor to read.
Review of advance copy
I enjoyed this self-examination; I didn't love it. The author is clearly very bright and knows how to write. Her personal story is interesting, for sure, but her own bad personal choices pretty much led to every bad thing that happened here. I could empathize with some of her pain, but her decisions led to the continuation of it, so I'm not quite sure where the idea of a book came from.
Thanks to Booktrovert for the e-copy of the book -- Good luck to the author on her continued journeys!
Thanks to Booktrovert for the e-copy of the book -- Good luck to the author on her continued journeys!
Review of advance copy received from Publisher
*ARC Received from Publisher for Review*
Very beautiful, lyrical language, very vulnerable, honest, and raw. This felt real. At times it shifted in setting and time, which kind of jarred me a bit, and I felt like the ending was a bit rushed through, so I was sort of confused how/when things changed for the author. But it's a memoir, not a novel, so I'm keeping that in mind. And again, the emotional vulnerability in this piece felt very real throughout, and very introspective overall.
Very beautiful, lyrical language, very vulnerable, honest, and raw. This felt real. At times it shifted in setting and time, which kind of jarred me a bit, and I felt like the ending was a bit rushed through, so I was sort of confused how/when things changed for the author. But it's a memoir, not a novel, so I'm keeping that in mind. And again, the emotional vulnerability in this piece felt very real throughout, and very introspective overall.
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