A Certain Slant of Light (Light #1)

Reader reviewed by SDaugherty

I loved this book and highly recommend it to everyone.  Helen is a ghost that has been around for around 150 years.  She has never seen anyone else like herself and has never had a living person notice her.  But some strange boy in her "host's" class sees her and talks to her.  This is not just a ghost story but a tangled web of ghost/teen drama/romance.  I could have sat and read this in one sitting but had to make it two.  

This is not just a book for those who like ghost stories, it's one for everyone.

Reader reviewed by ReaderGirl

The story begins with the narrator, Helen. A 20 year old girl who's made from light like a ghost. She wanders around on earth thinking that she's done some great sin in the past. Following her hosts, and never being able to feel. She's watched host after host die, and yet she still goes on. When she meets James, or Billy (the name of the body he's taken over), she falls in love and the whole no contact thing becomes a problem. So James helps her inhabit a body, only being human doesn't end up being as easy and she thought, and as she learns more and more about her old body and the new one she's inhabited she realizes her trouble has just begun. The girls she;s inhabited is named Jenny. Her parents are super religious, and wont let her have a boyfriend. So she decides to see him at school. Only her parents notice her sneaking around and get suspicious. And just when you think things can't get anyways...

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My Opinion on this book is not encouraging. Personally I found the sound of the narrators voice was good, and I liked the way it was written.... BUT I found the story really depressing and by the end I felt like I hated it! The characters were good but I felt the main characters didn't think through their decisions AT ALL, and they didn't really look for a body to take over that would work well for them. Also Billy had some issues that I didn't like. Anyways I was really disappointed... mainly because I like happy endings and this was not a book I felt had one.

I have to give it 2 stars.

*Reprinted with author's permission*

http://readergirlreviews.blogspot.com/

Reader reviewed by Lana

A certain slant of light was a book I picked randomly of the shelf at the library. What first attracted me to the book was the facinating cover art; it made me curious. After reading the summary I was ready for a regular little love story with some elements of supernatural suprise, but I was the one pleasently suprised when I began the reading of the book. I could not put it down! Everything from the unconventional love to the more intruiging theories of spiritual happenings captured my imagination and made me question some things about life as I know it. This story was one of those perfect finds: unconventional, passionate, intellectually stimulating, and excellently thought out. This book is absolutely innovative and should be read by anyone looking for something a little more out of the ordinary.

Reader reviewed by Teddy

This is a pretty good fantasy novel. I finished it in 2 days and thought the ending was clever. The main character is dead, yet still on earth. she meets another "spirit" and they inhabit 2 teens that are mentally not there. they are in love and want to be together, yet they can't see each other. recommended to young adults.

Reader reviewed by Jessica

I read this book in two days, that's how great it was. I thought the beginning was a little bit slow, but after I got past the initial starting point, I fell in love. The writing was very well done and the idea was one that I have never seen before. Highly imaginative and unbelievable. This is a story that I believe all teens can relate to in one way or another. Whether it be through one of the main characters or through the message that all of us want to fit in with someone somehow, this book is wonderful and a quick read.

Reader reviewed by Kayla (Midnight Twilight)

Helen is a ghost. She clings to hosts so she won't go back to her hell--icy water and mud pulling her into the ground. One day while she was with her host--a teacher-- a student in his class looked at her. Not through her like most humans do, he somehow saw her. She begins to be drawn to him and finds out that he is a ghost (or in her words Light) that implanted himself in an empty human body. They feel drawn to each other and begin to look for a body for her.


Warning: this book contains slightly graphic sex scenes, don't read it if you don't want to read them. Other than that little part this book was amazing!
The way the ghosts were portrayed was very original, she wasn't haunting her hosts, she was saved by them. They were the only things keeping her from her hell. So she helped them with their writing (they all wrote stories, or poems, or plays), she was their muse.
I didn't like how it seemed all that there was between Helen and James was lust, not love. The only way they were connected, or even new each other, was that they were both ghosts.
I did feel that the book pulled me in and compelled me to read more. It was very well written and it had all the things that make a supernatural book good: intrigue, a wonderful plot with lots of twists, romance (although there was a little too much for my taste), and unique look on the supernatural aspect (in this case ghosts).
I would have given this book five stars if it wasn't for the questionable lust.

Reader reviewed by rachpaige11

Helen is a spirit. She walks the earth being unseen and unheard. That all changes when in the first time in over a hundred years, someone can see and hear her. Its a teenage boy, named Billy. When Helen gets up the nerve to talk to him she discovers that he is also a spirit, just one with a body. With his help she learns how to inhabit a vacated body (a living and breathing body with no soul). They also fall in love.

This book was fantastic! I read it three times (not in a row!). I loved the story and the characters. There is love out there for everyone including ghosts.

Reader reviewed by Kelsey

In the class of the high school English teacher she has been haunting, Helen feels them: for the first time in 130 years, human eyes are looking at her. They belong to a boy, a boy who has not seemed remarkable until now. And Helen--terrified, but intrigued--is drawn to him. The fact that he is in a body and she is not presents this unlikely couple with their first challenge. But as the lovers struggle to find a way to be together, they begin to discover the secrets of their former lives and of the young people they come to possess.


The beginning of this novel was really interesting and unique. The plot is so unusual and creative that it just draws your attention full on to this book. With the beautiful cover and plot I sure was drawn to it. And the beginning of the book met my expectations, highly. But then I got about a hundred pages into the book and it just turned. It was just to...weird. The things that go on when she is in the body she possessed is odd. The stuff that goes into her mind is strange. The ending was good but confusing.


The whole part that really kept me highly interested was Helen with James. I just wanted to skip all the parts in between. I also thought that the way Whitcomb had James go was a just not enough for the story. But I was still intrigued. Even though this book half disappointed me I still want to read Whitcomb's other books if she writes more novels.

Reader reviewed by Grace

Helen is Light, caught between the dead and the living, unable to move on due to something in her past that she can't remember. She's had several hosts, all them of having a love for literature. It is in her latest host's classroom that she sees a boy looking right at her, and thus a strange and impossible romance begins.
What first interested me in this book was the cover, and then I found out that the story itself is very interesting and told with a lyrical style.

Reader reviewed by Carmen

The only thing I could think of once I'd finished this book was "My God, that was beautiful".
Helen, Light, a spirit trapped in this world. She must cling to hostes in order to avoid the watery hell that awaits her. Why? What did she do to deserve that?
No one can see or feel her. Not even her hostes, though she longs for them to. This makes it a total shocker when she finds an average boy, about seventeen or so, looking straight at her.
She shrugs him off, convincing herself that it was just a fluke. But little does she know that one day soon she'll be falling in love with him.
I really don't know how to describe the story without giving too much away...But trust me when I say it truly is a remarkable book. In a word, it's a strugle. Emotionally and maybe even a little psychologically.

Hope you close the book thinking to yourself "My God, that was beautiful".

Always, Carmen