Disclaimer: I have never read The Catcher in the Rye. I never had to read it for school and I really have no inclination of my own to read it. I did not pick this book up because it was supposed to be like Catcher in the Rye because, obviously, that meant nothing to me. It just sounded mildly interesting while perusing the shelves of the used bookstore the boy and I like to frequent, so I bought it.I have never encountered such a stupid, frustrating heroine in my entire life. The writing quality was good, but the story revolved completely around Lou's stupid decisions, and since she's supposed to have such an enormously high IQ (though we never find out exactly what it is) it makes it all the worse.So. The story revolves around Louise Connor, aka Lou, who moves from Sydney, Australia to somewhere around Chicago in the USA to spend a year abroad. She never wants to go back to her family because she hates them and thinks they're awful, even though they don't actually seem to be that bad. Her parents are unemployed, only receiving some sort of governmental stipend, so the family is pretty poor, but they spend their time delivering Meals on Wheels to old people, and there were several anecdotes about how sweet her mother or father could be. But Lou's real problem appears to be with her sisters. They do sound like they were mean, but... Lou didn't have to be involved with them. She also constantly calls them "sluts," a perception that appears to stem from them being interested in sex (even though neither seem to have a string of guys; one of them has a fiance, the other a boyfriend, and between the two of them only one past boyfriend is mentioned), smoke, drink, and want to have babies. Erm...what? And what's even more "what" about it is that Lou acts exactly the same way, except she's apparently afraid of sex for some reason, even though she takes her shirt off and engages in various sexually-related acts throughout the story. What what what? She also hates people who are prettier than she is, calling them all "low-IQ witches" when she never even spoke to them to determine their intelligence level. She's supposed to be quirky, I think, with her fascination for learning new words, singing, writing notes, and sleeping in spare bedrooms to cure her insomnia, but really she just comes across as your typical socially-inept character, with the bonus that she's supposed to be smart but is a total moron.Also, everyone--and I mean everyone--in this book seems to be out to get her, or at least she thinks they are, when they all actually have perfectly good reasons for what they do. Except James and Tom, who are just creepy individuals all around. Oh, and did I mention that I'm not sure I trust Lou as a narrator? She seems to be a compulsive liar and blatantly contradicts herself at several points. I'm not sure if this was bad continuity or, what seems more likely, Hyland using Lou as an unreliable narrator.Anyway, if you want to read a book about a complete moron who spends too much time trying to be "deep" and makes a lot of bad decisions, this would be a good book to read. The other characters are pretty well done and the writing isn't half bad at all. But Lou's sheer stupidity, contradictions, and lies made me pretty much hate her.
Picking this book up was a wild stab in the dark – I was thinking to maybe dig up some Salinger but I couldn't find The Catcher in the Rye, so I went to a shelf I usually don't remember to check and scanned the spines with my eyes all like half-closed, and this one just leapt out at me. It's one of the last books I took from the Strand before I got fired, just because of the cool cover and all, and I kind of didn't think I'd ever really read it.But! Wow, it was really quite good. And it's funny that I was looking for Salinger but came up with this, because – though I didn't know this until the end because I don't read the blurbs – like every reviewer compared this book's protagonist with Holden Caulfield. Which is odd and not too apt, I don't think, though it's been a very long time since I've read Catcher in the Rye, which was why I was looking for it in the first place. Um, what? Oh, How the Light Gets In. It's the story of Lou Conner, a super-smart, disaffected and depressed high school senior who lives with her pretty poor, white-trash (or their version thereof) family in Australia. Her two nasty slutty older sisters spit on her and beat her up, to the jeers of their much-older nasty boyfriends, which her mom thinks is totally fine. Neither of her parents work, or read books, or do much other than watch television and drink themselves stupid. So Lou's decided her ticket out is to do a one-year study-abroad in the States, though she's quite sure she'll never be going back home. So the book opens with her flying to Chicago to meet her host family, the Hardings, an upper-middle-class suburban clan composed of prim and proper mom, brooding and smart dad, thirteen-year-old picture-perfect Bridget, and nerdy fifteen-year-old puberty-wretched James. Everyone is very anxious to get along, but the forced pleasantries and awkward attempts at closeness, sharply juxtaposed against Lou's real wants, fears, and desires, are heartbreaking from the start. It's quickly apparent that everyone wants each other to be different than they are; everyone has constructed an image of one another that no one can hope to fulfill, and they all embark on a sad choreography of failure-to-live-up-to. There's the sexual tension between Lou and James, the competitiveness between Lou and Bridget, the questionable getting-along of Mr and Mrs Harding, the three teenagers just trying to find their different ways through all the bullshit of high school. It's in a lot of ways a pretty tragic book, because pretty much nothing goes truly right for anyone. The characters in this book are magnificent. The dialogue is totally natural and compelling. This is definitely an elevator book: one you'll pull out even on a twenty-second elevator ride, just to read half a page, because it just propels forward. I loved it, and I recommend it highly.
What do You think about How The Light Gets In (2005)?
Torn between 3 or 4 stars. 4 because it held my interest throughout and 3 because it left me feeling depressed. I normally like depressing books but they have to either make me grateful for the life I have or make me shed a few girlie tears reminiscent of watching Bambi. This was too hard hitting for either of those self-satisfied moments. This novel tells the story of Lou, over from Sydney on a student exchange in Chicago where she is plunged into a world she always dreamed of but would never fit in to. We learn of her pregnant sisters and their drug addled partners, out of work parents and a house that was so full of smoke they could barely see the TV. Lou is extremely bright but struggles to connect with anyone. Despite desperately wanting love and affection, she manages only to drive people away with her 'strangeness'. Too sad to recommend - not much light gets in at all.
—Helen
This book was really interesting because it showed me a demomgraphic I had never read about or met before. It revolved around a poor young girl from Austrailia living with her unbearable family. The girl, Lou, enters into a foregin exchange program in which she goes to live with a very wealthy family in California. Lou has an extremely difficult time dealing with a family that enforces rules such as no smoking. The book goes through her troubles and how she is mistreated and judged because of where she came from and her past troubles.
—Hannah
Our book club just finished a review of How the Light Gets In by M.J. Hyland. This book is a small slice of the life of a teenage exchange student, Lou, coming from Australia to live with a suburban family in the United States. She was looking to get away from her dysfunctional family and find a new start in a new place, but she managed to ruin it with immaturity. Lou never seemed to learn anything from her mistakes in each situation. I kept waiting for an explanation for her irrational behavior
—Nizzy
