Review Detail

4.4 17

A Northern Light

Young Adult Fiction 909

A New Favorite

April 28, 2011 (Updated: June 07, 2026)

Overall rating

5.0

Plot

5.0

Characters

N/A

Writing Style

N/A

Illustrations/Photos (if applicable)

N/A

Reader reviewed by Kayla

I really enjoyed this book. It's not often I come across a main character who's an avid reader. It was fun to read all the references to so many classics and I was a little proud of myself that I understood and recognized all of them. Mattie is such a great character. She's right up there with Francie Nolan from A Tree Grows in Brooklyn for characters that I wish I could be friends with in real life. I also loved how Donnelly used the colloquialism and idioms of that time, which made it very easy to imagine that I was listening to Mattie speak throughout the entire story, not just when she engaged in dialogue.

I didn't really think that basing the book around the Grace Brown murder case was necessary (that plot device could have been left out completely and I don't believe the book would have suffered any IMO), but I'm not complaining. It was interesting reading those letters and knowing that they were the actual words of Grace Brown.

Guest

Was this review helpful? 0 0