How the Light Gets in by Jolina Petersheim – Review

About the Book

“Compellingly woven by Jolina Petersheim’s capable pen, How the Light Gets In follows a trail of grief toward healing, leading to an impossible choice–what is best when every path will hurt someone?” –Lisa Wingate, New York Times bestselling author of Before We Were Yours

From the highly acclaimed author of The Outcast and The Alliance comes an engrossing novel about marriage and motherhood, loss and moving on.

When Ruth Neufeld’s husband and father-in-law are killed working for a relief organization overseas, she travels to Wisconsin with her young daughters and mother-in-law Mabel to bury her husband. She hopes the Mennonite community will be a quiet place to grieve and piece together next steps.

Ruth and her family are welcomed by Elam, her husband’s cousin, who invites them to stay at his cranberry farm through the harvest. Sifting through fields of berries and memories of a marriage that was broken long before her husband died, Ruth finds solace in the beauty of the land and healing through hard work and budding friendship. She also encounters the possibility of new love with Elam, whose gentle encouragement awakens hopes and dreams she thought she’d lost forever.

But an unexpected twist threatens to unseat the happy ending Ruth is about to write for herself. On the precipice of a fresh start and a new marriage, Ruth must make an impossible decision: which path to choose if her husband isn’t dead after all.

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In My Opinion

This book (my first read written by Jolina Petersheim) has otten some rave reviews from readers and bloggers I trust, so I decided I had to read it. And it is a well-written tome that throws some unexpected and emotional plot twists at your throughout, continually surprising you.

How the Light Gets In is not an easy book to read. It’s filled with loss, painful decisions, crushed hopes and dreams, and a marriage in disrepair. Yet, it’s a story of life. Of finding a way out of grief. Of living after devasting loss. Of finding a way to survive the pain, guilt, and daily struggles. Not every story has a happy ending. Sometimes a book or watch a movie that makes you hurt and cry is exactly what you want.

However, at the end of this one, I felt used, like Petersheim manipulated my emotions and then said, “Just kidding!” in the worst kind of way. So, my advice to readers is read the book…but skip the final chapter.