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The Light Source
The relationship between Heather Katchadourian and Julie Howe is complicated. Over the past two decades, they’ve been just about everything to each other: boarding school roommates, best friends, lovers, rivals, even co-parents—both together and estranged. Will they find their way back to each other, or have they inflicted too much damage along the way? Reminiscent of the work of Meg Wolitzer, and narrated by Heather, Julie, their lifelong friends, partners, and children, The Light Source is a prismatic portrayal of what everlasting modern love truly looks like and reminds us that what’s meant-to-be becomes harder to define with age.
220 pages, Paperback
First published July 31, 2019
3 people are currently reading
222 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
April 23, 2019
In The Light Source, we’re allowed to share revelatory experiences, a voyeur with a hidden camera positioned in these characters’ lives. We’re reminded that there are moments when someone sees us for who we actually are. It’s these instances that can shape our very existence, for better or worse. Magowan offers us a glimpse into these powerful occasions with breathtaking ease.
October 2, 2024
This is teenage chick lit. Another narrative glamorising the women and men ‘everyone wants’ and putting them in the limelight.
There are heaps of cameo characters thrown in, that take the narrative sideways into dead ends. Lots of descriptions of the most mundane thoughts and actions that don’t propel the story forward, with a handful of deep observations thrown in.
Then there’s the macho heterosexual male who notices women’s hair, nails and makeup :D
Such a shame, as one could have run miles with that structure and those characters, rather than stereotyping them into the sex addict, the belle of the ball, etc.
The writing is much better in the first half of the book. Some chapters are better than others, like the one from Heather’s perspective, and the one from Porter’s if you’re into overly sexualised POVs.
There are heaps of cameo characters thrown in, that take the narrative sideways into dead ends. Lots of descriptions of the most mundane thoughts and actions that don’t propel the story forward, with a handful of deep observations thrown in.
Then there’s the macho heterosexual male who notices women’s hair, nails and makeup :D
Such a shame, as one could have run miles with that structure and those characters, rather than stereotyping them into the sex addict, the belle of the ball, etc.
The writing is much better in the first half of the book. Some chapters are better than others, like the one from Heather’s perspective, and the one from Porter’s if you’re into overly sexualised POVs.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
September 1, 2019
I enjoyed The Light Source - a love story or stories, one could say - told from the varying perspectives of prep school friends (and a few of their family members) over the course of a few decades. Kim Magowan writes with honesty and humor as we come to know her characters, particularly Julie Howe and Heather Katchadourian, the two women at the center of this book. They are flawed and human and very relate-able; we wince at their missteps and mistakes and cheer them on when they're doing well. This story and these friends will stay with me for some time, and I look forward to reading more from this author.
December 10, 2020
Excellent novel, excellent writer! My blurb: "Kim Magowan writes some of the most exquisite sentences out there and her metaphors flash at you like eyes in the dark. To me she is a literary equivalent of the renowned psychotherapist Esther Perel, for all the wisdom, candor, and wit she shines on human relationships. The story of Julie and Heather is told in a composition of seven voices. As in a chiaroscuro painting, each voice is a stab of light that creates stark contrasts with the voices around it. The Light Source is a wicked smart, sexy, and devastatingly tender portrait of love in all its muddy glory."
November 10, 2019
I love many things about this novel, from its unconventional structure to its surprising portrait of modern love. Fans of Magowan's short stories will be pleased to see what she does here. The Light Source is the kind of Gen X novel I've been waiting for: incisive, emotional and highly entertaining.
August 25, 2019
One of my favorite novels of the last couple years. A great love story. A great story about living in the 1990’s and how we still live with those events into 2012 and beyond.
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September 6, 2019Fiction M212L 2019
August 27, 2024
I really enjoyed the first half of this novel, but midway it got bogged down with character dialog that was endless exposition.
June 15, 2023
Reviewed by Erin Theresa Welsh on www.rowanglassworks.org.
Relationships, no matter what type, are complex. Society sees friendships as one of the strongest relationships that can be established, and romantic relationships are one of the more challenging and delicate things to be a part of. Either way, both seem to be crucially important to human culture, and both tend to have a strong impact on an individual’s life.
Kim Magowan’s novel, The Light Source, is an interestingly realistic and compelling perspective on creating, maintaining, and destroying relationships over a lifetime. Each chapter is a whirlwind of new perspectives and opinions from each character and helps the audience get to know them personally and understand them more. Magowan writes the entire book split into the perspectives of seven of the main characters while the chapters jump through time to give the audience a well-rounded view of the same event surrounding each friend. Though it has a lot of back and forth throughout time and perspectives, it sticks to the main topic of Heather and Julie’s friendship and, eventually, their romantic relationship and how every character’s life ends up panning out. It is like a butterfly effect of one person’s actions or reactions causing a difference in another’s life and eventual outcome.
The story begins with a group of close twenty-something-year-old friends meeting together for the first time in a while. Two of the friends, Julie and Heather, get into an outlandish argument over Julie being engaged. Julie is dedicated to her relationship and disregards Heather’s comments, but within this first chapter of the book, the audience is already thrown into the complicated nature of these friendships that end up spanning until they are fully into adulthood. Over time, readers learn about the underlying aspects of Heather and Julie’s relationship as friends, enemies, and lovers. Readers steadily learn more about the two and what has been going on in their lives through the eyes of friends, and even children, over several decades.
Having each chapter reflect on a different character’s point of view on one situation is beneficial to the reader because it expands one instance into a few years showing several people impacted by the consequences and interactions. In The Light Source, we get to experience each moment of these complex and sensitive relationships through the perspectives of others who have issues and are flawed themselves. This approach is successful because the reader gets different opinions, beliefs, and ways to view each character. The characters view each other differently which adds to the unfolding of the plot. In one chapter from Heather’s perspective, she believes Julie is angry at her and will never want to see her again after the betrayal. Then, in another chapter from Julie’s point-of-view, the reader sees the other complicated feelings Julie has for Heather that span from love to hatred. Magowan creates a brutally realistic world in which not everything goes as planned or like someone might want it to, but where everything happens for a reason. Every character involved has their purpose and every action and moment makes a difference in the lives of these characters we grow to love as we continue reading.
This book doesn’t just give one character the benefit of the doubt or make another character inevitably perfect throughout, but instead gives the audience an honest revelation of how people are and what they regret--and perhaps this is why I enjoyed reading it so much. Nobody in this story is perfect or does everything right. There are so many moments the reader is baffled by actions in certain moments, but it is relatable. It is the realism--the accuracy of how each character thinks and what they do--that makes this book so engaging. This novel is a modern take on relationships and the internal and external struggles one has to face when creating and finalizing them.
The Light Source continually reminds us it is hard to define ‘love’ with one word, one phrase, or one action. Love could be something you feel for someone as a friend or as something more than that. It also enlightens us with the idea that in order to find that true happiness with someone you might love, a person needs to make sacrifices and it might not always end happily. This book shows the brokenhearted moments people create as well as the power that forgiveness and understanding can have. It is the epitome of the brutal beauty of relationships and evolving from past mistakes.
Relationships, no matter what type, are complex. Society sees friendships as one of the strongest relationships that can be established, and romantic relationships are one of the more challenging and delicate things to be a part of. Either way, both seem to be crucially important to human culture, and both tend to have a strong impact on an individual’s life.
Kim Magowan’s novel, The Light Source, is an interestingly realistic and compelling perspective on creating, maintaining, and destroying relationships over a lifetime. Each chapter is a whirlwind of new perspectives and opinions from each character and helps the audience get to know them personally and understand them more. Magowan writes the entire book split into the perspectives of seven of the main characters while the chapters jump through time to give the audience a well-rounded view of the same event surrounding each friend. Though it has a lot of back and forth throughout time and perspectives, it sticks to the main topic of Heather and Julie’s friendship and, eventually, their romantic relationship and how every character’s life ends up panning out. It is like a butterfly effect of one person’s actions or reactions causing a difference in another’s life and eventual outcome.
The story begins with a group of close twenty-something-year-old friends meeting together for the first time in a while. Two of the friends, Julie and Heather, get into an outlandish argument over Julie being engaged. Julie is dedicated to her relationship and disregards Heather’s comments, but within this first chapter of the book, the audience is already thrown into the complicated nature of these friendships that end up spanning until they are fully into adulthood. Over time, readers learn about the underlying aspects of Heather and Julie’s relationship as friends, enemies, and lovers. Readers steadily learn more about the two and what has been going on in their lives through the eyes of friends, and even children, over several decades.
Having each chapter reflect on a different character’s point of view on one situation is beneficial to the reader because it expands one instance into a few years showing several people impacted by the consequences and interactions. In The Light Source, we get to experience each moment of these complex and sensitive relationships through the perspectives of others who have issues and are flawed themselves. This approach is successful because the reader gets different opinions, beliefs, and ways to view each character. The characters view each other differently which adds to the unfolding of the plot. In one chapter from Heather’s perspective, she believes Julie is angry at her and will never want to see her again after the betrayal. Then, in another chapter from Julie’s point-of-view, the reader sees the other complicated feelings Julie has for Heather that span from love to hatred. Magowan creates a brutally realistic world in which not everything goes as planned or like someone might want it to, but where everything happens for a reason. Every character involved has their purpose and every action and moment makes a difference in the lives of these characters we grow to love as we continue reading.
This book doesn’t just give one character the benefit of the doubt or make another character inevitably perfect throughout, but instead gives the audience an honest revelation of how people are and what they regret--and perhaps this is why I enjoyed reading it so much. Nobody in this story is perfect or does everything right. There are so many moments the reader is baffled by actions in certain moments, but it is relatable. It is the realism--the accuracy of how each character thinks and what they do--that makes this book so engaging. This novel is a modern take on relationships and the internal and external struggles one has to face when creating and finalizing them.
The Light Source continually reminds us it is hard to define ‘love’ with one word, one phrase, or one action. Love could be something you feel for someone as a friend or as something more than that. It also enlightens us with the idea that in order to find that true happiness with someone you might love, a person needs to make sacrifices and it might not always end happily. This book shows the brokenhearted moments people create as well as the power that forgiveness and understanding can have. It is the epitome of the brutal beauty of relationships and evolving from past mistakes.
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews