A Northern Light and Revolution

I just barely started reading Jennifer Donnelly and I'm in love. She has this beautiful way of combining fiction and history. And mixing history with fiction is like someone adding a spoonful of nutella to a chocolate milkshake. It makes it both rich and irresistible.

I recently read her book A Northern Light and now you need to read it. 

This book is set in 1906 to the backdrop of the murder that inspired Theodore Dreiser’s An American Tragedy. But this story is about more than a tragic murder, it is the story of Mattie an aspiring writer who collects words and books in hopes that one day she can go to college and write her own story. The only problem is she has to stay home to take care of the family farm and her siblings who are still mourning the death of their mother. In the midst of her trials she is surrounded by wonderful friends and a romantic interested who offers love, but demands Mattie’s voice. Now Mattie has to decide what’s more important, becoming who everyone thinks she should, or fighting to be the person she wants to be.   

Read A Northern Light because teen novels don’t get much better than this.  But this book is merely a prelude of an even greater novel: Revolution.

Rating: 4/5

I read Revolution a couple of years ago and it is fantastic. It artfully weaves two girls stories into a masterpiece filled with love and human sorrow. It’s about a brilliant musician suffering from depression due to the recent death of her little brother and the ultimate demise of her family. In an attempt to make sure she doesn’t fail her senior year, her father forces her to go to France and complete her senior project under his watch-full eye. There she finds a hidden journal in an old guitar case that belongs to Alex a French girl who gets caught up with the doomed monarchy of France.

Rating: 5/5

I’m beyond nerdy excited for you guys to experience Jennifer Donnelly. Enjoy!

-Lora