Surrounded by poverty, crime and a family whom she feels she has nothing in common with, Lou Connor is 16 when she gets accepted as an exchange student in America. This is her big chance to escape from her unhappy existence in Sydney and when she meets her host family, The Hardings, and sees them live the American dream, she desperately wants to become part of their lives forever. But Lou has always been used to freedom - her family seem disinterested in her life to the point where she can do whatever she wants, so she soon becomes suffocated with the Harding's rules and regulations, to the point where the only way she can breathe is to rebel.
I didn't particularly like Lou when I first met her, but with time I began to understand and empathise with parts of her personality. It becomes obvious almost instantly that she is a lonely, mixed up young girl, desperately trying to escape from her unhappy existence. She is a frustrating character; she appears to have no feelings whatsoever for her own family and seems intent on getting as far away as possible from them, and is blind to the fact that she creates many of her own problems. But it is important to remember that she's only sixteen, a particularly self-absorbed age - I try to forget about what I put my own parents through at that time.... But as she starts to show genuine remorse for some of her mistakes it becomes impossible not to warm towards Lou.
I haven't read a book in ages which has so accurately depicted the turmoil of teenage years. The author writes so wonderfully and uses the first person narrative so effectively that the reader is able to climb into the character and I think this is what makes the book such a success. Her prose is perfectly written from a young girl's point of view and so raw that it often feels more like a memoir than a novel. Her descriptions of a tormented teenager are unbelievably evocative and simmer with angst, bitterness and confusion.
'How the light gets in' is a wonderfully honest depiction of a tormented and troubled teenager. Beautifully written, it perfectly sums up the feelings of anxiety and uncertainty those teenage years can bring.
