Lending Light

Title: Lending Light
Author: Rose Christo
Publisher: Self-Published
Release Date: August 17, 2014
Genre(s): Contemporary, Young Adult
Page Count: 306
Reviewed by: Lenalena
Heat Level: 2 flames out of 5
Rating: 5+ stars out of 5
Blurb:

“Sometimes my imagination bleeds into reality.”

Eleven years ago a serial killer menaced the Nettlebush Indian Reservation. Rafael Gives Light is his son. A loner, Rafael relies on his startlingly overactive imagination to escape the distrust and vitriol of his peers.

In the summer of 2000 an exceptionally blond boy moves to Nettlebush. Rafael learns that the boy is his father’s last living victim. The boy wants to be friends.

This book has the sort of fragile beauty that makes you forget that you’re a cynical 40-something, who has read it all before. I thought it’d be tedious to read the same story as Gives Light, but then from Rafael’s POV. I’ve seldom been so happy to be completely and utterly wrong. Still, it probably helps that I read that book a while ago.

Rafael Gives Light (who should have been named Rafael Sees Light, or Rafael Touches Light) is one of those Christo MCs that just bowls you over with their ungainly vulnerability. He’s probably my favorite. Maybe after Tommy from White Buffalo Calf Warriors, I don’t know. I am not going to spoil the book by telling you why, you need to read it yourself. But if you do and you don’t think Rafael is just a beautiful, beautiful character, I’m afraid we can’t be friends anymore.

The book isn’t perfect. Christo tends to be a bit repetitive, although it’s really not that bad here. And the end is a bit abrupt. But hell, that is me trying to come up with anything that might be considered criticism. It’s close enough to perfect, better even than I remember Gives Light being, to give it 5 stars. Easily my favorite in the series.

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