Amy McNamara

Emma and Evie have been friends for as long as they can remember though they are as different as any two high schoolers can be. They balance each other in their best moments and repel each other in their worst.

I spend a lot of time clucking my tongue and sighing at the lack of attention given to the nitty-gritty side of mental health in fiction.

There is often an emphasis on normal-spiral-treatment-healed.

A Flicker In the Clarity does no such thing.

Emma and Evie both stumble through their traumas and grief in their own ways, leaning on each other and away from each other in less than healthy or neatly tied up ways.

Because their journeys were presented in realistic, messy ways, the entire book felt pretty frustrating but that was what I loved about it, too.

The writing as beautiful and the story was authentic. In moments of frustration, I had to remind myself that the way each young woman was acting (either acting out or enabling of the other) was far closer to reality than I had come across before this particular book. When I could step back and gain that perspective, I was able to truly appreciate the raw beauty of the book.… (mais)

When her boyfriend dies in a tragic accident, Wren retreats to her father’s remote home and art studio. A ghost of her former self, she feels broken. Wren just wants to be left alone. When she's not sleeping, she goes running in the woods. Will she ever return to normal life? Throughout this poetic winter read Wren’s inner dialogue captures feelings of grief, loss, and mourning in a way that feels real. Readers may also want to raed the poetry of Phillip Larkin or Robert Frost, as the story alludes to and quotes their work.

Katie Z. / Marathon County Public Library
Find this book in our library catalog.

… (mais)

This is definitely an interesting read. At first I hated it. It took me over a month to read this book, which is super abnormal if the book isn't for school. I ended up putting it down for almost 3 weeks.

Today I picked it up again, and let me tell you my opinion completely changed. It deals with grief and depression in the best way I have read yet. I now realize that the relationship does make a lot of sense, whereas at first I hated it. I thought it was unhealthy, but now I see it differently.

I think this is a great book to read when you are in similar state to Wren. When you are putting yourself back together after being shattered. I think that it is raw and real.… (mais)