All the Little Lights

by Jamie McGuire

Overview

From #1 New York Times bestselling author Jamie McGuire comes a riveting tale of first love that starts young but runs deep.

The first time Elliott Youngblood spots Catherine Calhoun, he’s just a boy with a camera, and he’s never seen a sadder and more beautiful sight. Both Elliott and Catherine feel like outcasts, yet they find an easy friendship with each other. But when Catherine needs him most, Elliott is forced to leave town.

Elliott finally returns, but he and Catherine are now different people. He’s a star high school athlete, and she spends all her free time working at her mother’s mysterious bed-and-breakfast. Catherine hasn’t forgiven Elliott for abandoning her, but he’s determined to win back her friendship…and her heart.

Just when Catherine is ready to fully trust Elliott, he becomes the prime suspect in a local tragedy. Despite the town’s growing suspicions, Catherine clings to her love for Elliott. But a devastating secret that Catherine has buried could destroy whatever chance of happiness they have left.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781503902787
Publisher:	Amazon Publishing
Publication date:	05/29/2018
Pages:	412
Sales rank:	164,652
Product dimensions:	5.40(w) x 8.10(h) x 1.30(d)
Age Range:	14 - 17 Years

About the Author

Jamie McGuire is the #1 New York Times, USA Today, and Wall Street Journal bestselling author of Walking Disaster, the Maddox Brothers series, the Providence trilogy, and the international bestseller Beautiful Disaster, which paved the way for the new-adult genre. She was the first independent author in history to strike a print deal with retail giant Walmart, and her work has been translated into fifty languages. She lives in Tulsa, Oklahoma, with her three children and German shepherd, Hazel. To learn more about Jamie, visit www.jamiemcguire.com, or follow her on Twitter @JamieMcGuire.

Editorial Reviews

This is an engaging story of two wounded kids who find solace in a friendship that blossoms into a touching first love. A young adult love story laced with warmth, angst, and hope.” —Kirkus Reviews

“McGuire crafts a compulsively readable love story…She combines themes of racism, abusive families, and mental illness to create a pair of protagonists who are multidimensional and worth knowing. McGuire leaves enough bread crumbs to set the tone for what is to come, building a truly surprising and terrifying climax. Readers who enjoy Megan Miranda’s psychological thrillers and Jennifer Armentrout’s new adult titles will devour this book.” —VOYA

“With a raw, genuine candidness in her storytelling, McGuire will capture readers as she delves into complex matters of the heart. McGuire’s latest is a story of enduring love that readers will fall in love with.” —RT Book Reviews

From the Publisher

05/01/2018
Gr 8 Up—Elliott Youngblood and Catherine Calhoun are outsiders in the desolate town of Oak Creek, OK—Elliott, because he is Cherokee; Catherine, who is white, because her family owned a smelting plant that poisoned the town. When Elliott visited his aunt and uncle in Oak Creek the summer before his freshman year, he and Catherine developed an instantaneous connection. But on the same day that Catherine's beloved father died unexpectedly, Elliott is dragged back to his hometown. Catherine spends the next three years working at her family's bed-and-breakfast and trying to forget Elliott, until he reappears during their senior year. But things are no longer as simple as they used to be, and Catherine harbors a dark secret that threatens to tear them apart. While this romance concludes with a clever and disturbing twist, the ending is tonally incongruous with the repetitive love story that precedes it. A narrow focus on Catherine and Elliott's relationship leaves little room for character development. The author relies on tropes to flesh out some of the secondary characters readers meet, such as an African American paying guest, who periodically stays at the family's establishment and voluntarily cooks, cleans, and takes care of Catherine, while giving the young woman life lessons. Catherine's ill-defined problems take center stage, even though Elliott experiences racist abuse and domestic violence. VERDICT Poor pacing and flat, stereotypical characters make McGuire's YA debut one to skip.—Elizabeth Giles, Lubuto Library Partners, Zambia

School Library Journal

2018-04-03
Catherine Calhoun has the misfortune of coming from a once-rich white oil family that has been blamed for the deaths of those exposed to the by-products of smelter that seeped into the water supply.Even worse, her parents' relationship deteriorates after her father loses his job in their dying rural Oklahoma town. Down the block, Cherokee teen Elliot Youngblood is spending the summer with his aunt and uncle due to his parents' tumultuous and violent marriage. Elliot finds the nerve to approach Catherine, and the two forge a friendship, becoming inseparable. On the day Catherine's father tragically dies from a heart attack, Elliot is forced to go home without a chance to say goodbye. Two years later, the beginning of their senior year, Elliot returns to find Catherine angry and heartbroken. Her life has led her to a darker place: Her home now serves as a boardinghouse full of unsafe strangers. As Catherine and Elliot attempt to rekindle their friendship, Catherine hides the terrible behavior of the guests as well as the deterioration of her mother's mental health. There are a few stereotypical references (Elliot's mother is painted with a feather in her hair and mentions of bronze skin and cheekbones), but this is an engaging story of two wounded kids who find solace in a friendship that blossoms into a touching first love. A young adult love story laced with warmth, angst, and hope. (Fiction. 14-18)

Kirkus Reviews