Rave review for LIGHT FROM A DISTANT STAR

Mary McGarry Morris's LIGHT FROM A DISTANT STAR has just received a stunning rave review from The Associated Press, and it has been reprinted and re-posted by newspapers across the US!  You can read the full review by clicking here.  An excerpt is below.

Including this new rave, several reviews have now compared Morris's novel to Harper Lee's TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD.  Lee's widely beloved classic has been popular in the media lately, with UK readers having just voted it as the #1 book they want to receive on the next World Book Night (see link here).  For anyone who's ever read and enjoyed TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD, be sure to pick up what's sure to become a new classic: LIGHT FROM A DISTANT STAR!

LIGHT FROM A DISTANT STAR was released into bookstores this week.  Learn more about the author here: http://marymcgarrymorris.com/
 
From The Associated Press:

Morris laces new novel with growing sense of dread
By Monica Rhor

Morris's finely crafted prose--simple and lyrical--captures perfectly that sliver of pre-adolescence when the very world around us seems to shudder and shift, when the adults we admire suddenly reveal their flaws, and everything we treasure seems to be slipping away...The journey of Nellie, smart, independent, and unwilling to bend, into being a traditional girl, recalls the central thread of TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD where violence and tragedy also propel Scout Finch into a deeper understanding of human nature.  

But unlike that book, in which Atticus Finch forms an unassailable center of honor and integrity, LIGHT FROM A DISTANT STAR portrays a muddled adult world, where honor can often hide weakness, success can mask cruelty, and even heroes can harbor dark impulses.  

Morris...nimbly laces her latest novel with a growing sense of dread, hinting at the awfulness that is about to enter the lives of Nellie and her fragile family.  But it is that awfulness the violence itself, the aftermath, or simply the terrible knowledge that comes when all veneers are stripped away?

The lessons of LIGHT FROM A DISTANT STAR may not be as uplifting as the clearly drawn morality of Harper Lee's classic, but Nellie Peck's stubborn belief in the goodness of a fellow human being offers a much-needed counterpoint to our culture of cynicism and moral muddiness.

Crown, September 2011