“Grieving people don’t care about metaphors” – We Are The Light

Summary

Maybe that’s closer to the truth than we’d like to admit. We Are The Light is about a man coping with witnessing a shooting in a theatre and losing his wife. He writes to his Jungian analyst (therapist) and doesn’t tell anyone about the angels he sees. It’s meant to be hopeful and healing. But we read this during a week that had four new mass shootings in America. So it made this a tougher pill to swallow.

I’m thankful to have read it with Book Friends Book Club. We Are The Light is a book that deserves to be chewed on a bit. It needs to be talked about. It made for great discussion and our reviews and thoughts and opinions were all over the place on this one – from DNF’s to 5 stars. I love books like that! It really touches on very personal themes.

“We need to laugh and cry and cheer together as a community. Don’t let the tragedy take that from us.”

The book is indeed filled with beautiful themes of forgiveness, peace, and healing. Of the ways we cope with pain. Of our found family when our given ones don’t work out. There’s a nod to religion and therapy and even political change. The story highlights how change will only come about if we work together.

“We are all capable of the miraculous.”

What seems to matter most in the end is love. Choosing to forgive, to care about each other in deeper ways, to use your words. Because at the end of the day our only way to heal is to love others well, even if it seems impossible.

My Thoughts

For me, the book felt a little over simplified. I do love the concept of art having the power to heal but for real change there’s a lot more we need to do. And for me, the epistolary format became repetitive and seemed awfully young. I had to keep reminding myself this is a grown man not the teen from the shooting. We Are The Light is slow to start but once immersed you will want to see it through to the satisfying conclusion.

CW: suicide, murder, gun violence, abuse

Next Steps

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