About the Book and Author
This is a heart-wrenching exploration of a younger sister’s grief for her older sister.
To the world, Lizzie Beck is a superstar: famous, talented and beloved.
To Emmy, she is simply Beth: her brilliant older sister, her idol.
Without Beth Emmy is lost. Amidst the media storm and overwhelming public grief, she must fight to save her own memories of her sister – and find out who she is without her.
Sara Barnard is the author of Fragile Like Us; A Quiet Kind of Thunder; Goodbye, Perfect; and Destination Anywhere. She lives in Brighton, England, with her husband and their grumpy cat. She studied American literature with creative writing at university and never stopped reading YA.
Book Review
This book is a work of art
Where the Light Goes by Sara Barnard is one of those books that has the power to move you to tears. It is so powerful and emotive, putting across to the reader the raw emotion of the main character.
Emmy is an ordinary teenage girl apart from the fact that her older sister, Beth, is also the famous singer Lizzie Beck. Emmy loves her sister greatly, so when Beth dies by suicide it is as though her whole world has broken. And the scrutiny of the press and the public only makes it worse. This book tells the story of Emmy’s grief in the days, weeks, and years afterwards.
The characters in this book are so convincing they feel real, and Emmy’s grief is conveyed so strongly that this book is heart-wrenching to read. Sara Barnard has a great gift to possess the ability to evoke such emotion in her readers, and Where the Light Goes is a perfect display of that.
Alongside Emmy’s grief, this book also explores the difficulty posed by the press on the families of those who have died, as well as the pressure placed on celebrities.
I would recommend this book to those in their late teens onward.
This book is a work of art and will definitely look out for more by Sara Barnard.
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Reviewer Profile
- Name: Margaret
- Age: 14 years
- Likes: reading, fossil hunting and writing
- Dislikes: seafood and stir-fry
- Favourite Book: The Book Thief by Markus Zusak
- Favourite Film: Star Wars: The Clone Wars
- Favourite Song: Aberdaron by The Trials of Cato
