The Light Between Oceans

Read with Gloucester Book Club.

I loved this book! You are right there with the characters feeling their longing and heartbreak.

There were only five people present at this month’s meeting due to a lot of members being on holiday or having other commitments. Despite this, the discussion was lively and we all enjoyed the lemon cake which Amy brought along!

Everybody enjoyed this book. It was compared to The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, which has been our favourite book so far. We liked the style of the writing and found it easy to read.

We spent a lot of time discussing whether Tom and Isobel did the right thing in keeping the baby. We felt that Isobel’s decision was influenced by the fact that she had just lost a baby of her own, and also that she had seen the orphanage her friend’s baby had been sent to and knew what would happen if both parents had died and she and Tom didn’t keep the baby. There is no doubt that they had a lot of love to give and if they had reported what had happened and it had transpired that the mother was also dead, Lucy’s life would have been a much less happy one. So, given the circumstances as they presented themselves, we felt we could not blame her for the decision she made. We then discussed whether it was right to disobey the law and decided that it is sometimes for the best, but we felt that if Tom had recorded what had happened in the book that would have been better, because then whatever happened they could say that they did what they thought best at the time. But by not recording the event, he made it clear that he knew it was wrong, which was damning evidence when the truth finally emerged.

We also discussed what was best for Lucy/Grace. She was eventually taken from a home and people that she loved and given to a family who, even though they were her blood relatives, she did not know at all. We related that to true-life stories that have been in the news where adopted children are taken from loving families to be given back to their birth parents and how much it upsets everyone when this happens. We concluded that there is no right or wrong in this situation and that the whole thing is just very sad. We thought that the original wrong-doing was the persecution of Franz which led to him jumping into the boat with the baby. Everything that was done thereafter was done for good-hearted reasons and might be excused, but this kind of bullying was definitely wrong. However, it was mentioned that you could go back even beyond that to the causes of the war which made people hate the Germans so there is a continuum of events and the decisions made at each point influence the future.

We had all thought at one point that the person leaving the notes might be Isobel, and when we found out it was actually Tom after all we did feel that that was a kind of a betrayal on his part, even though, in the strictest sense, it was “the right thing to do”. We were pleased that Tom and Isobel came back together at the end and we wished that Lucy/Grace had managed to get there before Isobel died as we felt sad that she didn’t get to see her again. In some ways that was felt to be her punishment but we thought that the axiom “it is better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all” held true.

Overall, everyone really enjoyed the book and it moved many to tears.

The overall score for this book was 9 out of 10 and the people present declared it their favourite so far!

It could be that us Swaying Ladies are just a cynical bunch or that we refuse to be emotionally manipulated but for the overall feeling amongst us was that this book just didn't hit the spot.
We had high expectations; we'd read the Book Thief and loved it and Marcus Zusak said he found this book to be "Extraordinary and Heart-rending" but we sadly for us, we really didn't enjoy it.
It felt as thought ML Stedman had picked all the most horrific, emotional and disturbing experiences anyone could possibly think about and threw them all together, in no particular order, in a vain attempt to produce something profound and deep. Sure, some of us shed tears, I mean who wouldn't reading about such travesties like having a child torn away from you and your husband unfairly incarcerated, but we felt on the whole that it was unnecessarily cruel and sad. I would say that most people want a book with at least a glimmer of hope and this book was just plain depressing.

A well-written novel dealing with the consequences of judgments and a cleverly crafted story. An incredibly moving novel about what happens when good people make bad decisions.

Their are not enough adjectives to describe this incredible read!

Beautiful, sorrowful, heart opening, gracious, thought provoking.
One of the true treasures this book affords is the opportunity to read some then close the book to reflect some and then rush back to opening the book to continue on with this incredible story.

Loved the writing in that it is written with a twist.

MUST READ B-4 The movie comes out!!

Love this cover although, the original cover with the lighthouse in my opinion holds more meaning.

Emotional, heart rending novel. The couple's struggle between doing the right thing and losing everything. Powerful and beautifully written. What a great first novel!