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    A Gathering Light: WINNER OF THE CARNEGIE MEDAL 2003
    Unavailable
    A Gathering Light: WINNER OF THE CARNEGIE MEDAL 2003
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    A Gathering Light: WINNER OF THE CARNEGIE MEDAL 2003
    Ebook354 pages6 hours

    A Gathering Light: WINNER OF THE CARNEGIE MEDAL 2003

    By Jennifer Donnelly

    4/5

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    About this ebook

    An astounding novel about a girl's coming-of-age interwoven with a real-life murder that rocked turn-of-the-century America. WINNER OF THE CARNEGIE MEDAL 2003.

    'A breathtakingly good novel' Daily Mail

    When Mattie Gokey is given a bundle of letters to burn by Grace Brown, she fully intends to do so. But when Grace is found drowned the next day, Mattie finds that it is not as easy to get rid of those letters as she had thought. And, as she reads, a riveting story emerges - not only revealing Grace's secrets but also Mattie's hopes and ambitions for the future and her relationships with her friends and family.

    Published to widespread acclaim this part murder-mystery and part coming-of-age story is an astounding and accomplished novel.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherBloomsbury Publishing
    Release dateNov 5, 2015
    ISBN9781408876176
    Unavailable
    A Gathering Light: WINNER OF THE CARNEGIE MEDAL 2003
    Author

    Jennifer Donnelly

    Jennifer Donnelly is the author of eleven novels including the Waterfire Saga, The Tea Rose series, Beauty and the Beast: Lost in a Book, and A Northern Light.  She grew up in New York State, in Lewis and Westchester counties, and attended the University of Rochester where she majored in English Literature and European History. www.jenniferdonnelly.com Twitter: @JenWritesBooks

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    Reviews for A Gathering Light

    4/5

    1,095 ratings92 reviews

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    Review must be at least 10 words

    • 5/5
      A Northern Light by Jennifer Donnelly; (5*)I cannot but attempt to tell you how much I loved this book. It tells the story of Mattie, a 16 year old girl growing up in Eagle Bay of the Adirondacks in the early 1900s. She is the 2nd of 5 children with an older brother and 3 younger sisters. Mattie struggles with the death of her mother and the change that comes over her father, a farmer, due to the loss of his wife. The entire family has trouble coping and soon things come to a head between her brother and father. The brother finds no recourse but to leave, abandoning his sisters to the responsibility of running the dairy farm with their father. Mattie also has the job of raising her 3 sisters. And while she does not begrudge this work, her dream is to complete her schooling and continue on to college, must take a back seat. Reading great literature along with poetry are what truly stir her heart.Furthering the story is her need to find a job which, when she does, happens to bring her into contact with the place, time and lives of the real life murder and mystery behind the great Theodore Dreiser's An American Tragedy. All the while Donnelly has written of marvelous characters and back burner stories which kept this reader engrossed. Reading this novel was like going back to an earlier time when novels such as this were the norm rather than the exception they are today.Five golden stars to this author for her wonderful coming of age story. I highly recommend this one
    • 5/5
      One of this year's best historical fiction! Set in the early 1900's in the Rural North Woods, a young farm girl, Mattie Gokey, is unsure of her life. She wants more than just a farm life. She wants an education. She wants to marry... or does she? When she goes to work in an Adirondack area hotel for the summer, she becomes embroiled in a mystery surrounding the body of a young woman who was a guest at the hotel. Just before she drowned, Grace Brown left a packet of letters with Mattie to burn. Should she burn them? They could be the only clue to what really happened to Grace.
    • 4/5
      Jennifer Donnelly's A Northern Light completely gripped me. The story is of a young girl named Mattie who struggles to find herself among a tide of pressure. In a time when women were often pushed into a familial based life, Mattie wants to pursue a life of her own. One summer she gets tangled in a murder mystery, and her outlook and aspirations of life are changed in accordance with this tragedy. I really liked this book, and I found the author's writing to be creative and intriguing. I especially liked that each chapter was a single word that described the tone of the rest of the chapter. This book is worth the read.
    • 4/5
      Donnelly's novel, based on the true story of a young woman murdered at a hotel in the Adirondacks in 1906, features a young protagonist caught between her promise to her dying mother, and her desire to pursue her own dreams. While some of the characters seem stock - the inspirational teacher with a secret of her own, the dedicated friend with with his own demons to face, the disapproving father with a soft heart - in Donnelley's hands what could have been trite becomes vivid, genuine, humorous and heart-wrenching. This novel is a window into a particular time and place, but the human emotions and struggles it portrays are eternal.
    • 5/5
      Excellent young adult book. Highly recommend the audiobook, read by Hope Davis.
    • 5/5
      This book is the second best book i have ever read for this summer so far.A 16 year old girl sacrififcing her life to never break her mothers promise but in the end she fulfills her dreams and goes to new york.
    • 5/5
      WOW. What a pleasant surprise. It didn't take long to get sucked into the two stories, one based on real events in the Andirondack mountains. At times a little graphic but riveting reading. The use of Mattie's 'word of the day' is at times contrived, yet a thoroughly compelling read, that will have you experiencing a range of emotions as you empathise with Mattie's plight.
    • 3/5
      There was a lot to like about this book. The setting was clearly well researched and the characters very realistic. The protagonist Maddie works at a nearby hotel as a maid during the tourist season. A guest gives her a stack of letters to destroy but before she gets the chance to the girl is discovered dead. I'm too old for the intended audience for the book I'm afraid. I also grew up in a more cynical time. I had a hard time believing an avid reader such as Maddie didn't realise a few things about her crush or the neighbours problems.I won't fault the author for using these reveals since they are done to death for a reason.
    • 4/5
      This book was not what I was expecting. It's poignant and the writing is interesting and unique. My one issue was the fact there was a whole lot going on in those few months. Other than that, I loved it.
    • 3/5
      Unusual historical novel based on a true incident. I don't think it's paced for a teen reader. I think adult women would like it more.
    • 5/5
      Set against the backdrop of a real event from 1906, this novel weaves history, romance, and a murder mystery into an exciting historical fiction for young adults. This Printz honor book provides an wonderful glimpse of the life and options for young woman in the early 1900s. I particularly enjoyed the focus on words and word play within the book. Our central character, Mattie learns a new word from the dictionary each day. These words are then connected to events in each chapter.
    • 5/5
      This is the kind of book that reminds girls that their problems are not new or unique. This coming-of-age story encourages girls to think for themselves, value their intelligence and trust their hearts.
    • 2/5
      I really wanted to like this book, and I did enjoy certain aspects, but for the most part I feel that it's nothing more than a diatribe against being a wife and mother. Once again, as in so many coming-of-age novels featuring a female protagonist, the author seems to overtly convey the message that a girl is nothing if she is not educated, and is not primarily concerned with her own fulfillment. The only redeeming portion of the book was the Grace Brown storyline; I wish that the author would have explored her story further.
    • 4/5
      Started off a little boring, but I ended up really hooked during the last two thirds. I wasn't too pleased with the very ending as it seemed to contradict the entire message of the story, but I'm probably in the minority.
    • 4/5
      This was a wonderful story. I listened to it and Hope Davis handled this reading beautifully. The story is of a farm girl whose mother has recently passed away. She is very smart and would love to spend all her time reading, but since she is the oldest sibling at home on a farm that is barely surviving she is forced to spend most of her time doing exhausting, back breaking work. She dreams of going to college is close to being realized when circumstances intervene. The author interweaves a true tale of a young woman who was killed in 1906 by her fiance into the storyline.
    • 3/5
      Historical fiction loaded with a myriad of details in 1906 small town life in the North Woods near the Canadian border. Mattie Gokey (Anglicized from the French) longs to finish high school, go to college, and become a writer. She grieves for her mother, recently died from cancer, and tries to understand her distant, stern father who also grieves. He depends on Mattie to care for the household, help with the farm, and maintain order with her younger sisters; Mattie struggles to not resent her older brother who fought with dad & ran away. Her father cannot imagine Mattie leaving them. She is thrilled when Royal Loomis, handsome neighbor, begins to courts her, and wants her to marry him, and settle down to a farming life. As these conflicting obligations begin to build, Mattie goes to work at the Glenmore, one of the huge resort hotels on the lake, & becomes drawn into a terrible tragedy, the disappearance of one of the visitors and the discovery of his drowned young woman companion- a mystery that adds to to the suspense. Mattie does have good friends, including Weaver, an African American boy who is also determined to head to college & her beloved teacher, Miss Wilcox, who turns out to have a secret life of her own. Themes of serving family v.s. finding one's own path, feminism, racism, among others lifts this story beyond just a coming of age for a young woman.
    • 4/5
      Well-researched and written book, completely captivating.
    • 3/5
      Heavily hyped and, I was distressed to find, a Richard-and-Judy rec. No better than average: painstaking in historical detail, and very eager that the reader should know that.
    • 2/5
      This book uses a real historical event and creates a fiction around it. But the book is not about the event. It is about living in the Adirondacks in the early 1900's, the differences between the tourists and the people who lived there. The main character and narrator is a young girl who wants to go to college and faces opposition from her family and a young man who wants to marry her. She has to decide between the easy thing and following her dreams. The writing style is relaxed and carries you along. The narrative goes from the past to the present, but the present is moving slower than the past so they eventually meet and then the story flows to its finish.She has a unique way of describing things, "Our Abby is a sprigged dress that has been washed and turned wrong side out to dry, with all its color hidden." And on another occasion when her sister is having her "monthlies" and her pa got mad at her cause he was embarrassed. "Cripes, it wasn't my fault. What did he go and have four girls for?"
    • 4/5
      I've read several of Jennifer Donnelly's other books & enjoyed them, and despite knowing this one had received high acclaim, for some reason this one just hadn't made it to the top of Mt. TBR. And now that it has, I almost feel disappointed. I can't put my finger on why. It's well-written, it showcases a strong female character (who loves books!), & it interweaves some historic fiction. Like the last novel of Donnelly's I read, Revolution, I liked it, but didn't love it, although for different reasons. I think ultimately this one just fell a little flat for me. I had such high hopes, and it was good, but....something was just missing. Perhaps more resolution at the end. I liked this one, but not sure it was my favorite of hers.
    • 4/5
      Interesting book that's based on a true story. In 1906, 16 yr old Mattie takes a job at an inn where she discovers the truth about the death of a guest while deciding her own future.
    • 4/5
      Please read anything you find about this author. It's so good that I couldn't stop reading.
    • 4/5
      A good read. A little long towards the middle, but it picks up. I loved the flipping forwards and backwards in time towards the beginning, althought it did get a little confusing at some points.It has a good moral for girls saying that they don't have to settle for a life as a mother if they don;t want to. You can be whatever you want to be. Go for your dreams, even of others don't believe in you.
    • 5/5
      For me, this book had it all. A great story and great writing, historical fiction whose characters speak in the voices of their time, the year 1906, the place, the Adirondacks. A young woman comes of age under difficult circumstances, trying to help her widowed father run a farm and care for the younger children, while harboring her own dreams of college and a writing career. Connolly brings Mattie Gokey and all the other characters to life, and although the book is young adult fiction, it is just as satisfying for an adult reader. I had the additional pleasure of listening to the book on CD, read by the actor Hope Davis, who renders the voices of each of the characters quite believably, male and female, especially the Irish hotel cook. I would like to go back and read the words and compare my reactions to the book.
    • 5/5
      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 think 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.
    • 5/5
      Using Theodore Dreiser's An American Tragedy as a springboard, Jennifer Donnelly weaves a rich tapestry of history, romance, poverty, the desire to succeed, the love of books, and a turn of the century murder.When young Mattie Gokey's mother dies, she is overburdened by the needs of her father and siblings. Longing to escape poverty and the back woods of upstate New York, Mattie's love of books propels her forward to a dream of education and fulfillment of her dream.Highly recommended.
    • 4/5
      Told as a fictional account of a young girl in the early 20th century, this novel is framed by the real-life murder of a young girl in an northern mountain lake resort. What is gorgeous about the story is the way that, somewhere in the middle, the two girls' narratives--our protagnoist's, Mattie, and the drowned girl's, Grace--almost seamlessly weave together into a poignant coming of age story. Mattie is a brilliant writer with bigger dreams than can possibly become a reality given her situation: after her mother's death from cancer, she is charged with being the caretaker and centralizing figure in her modest farm home. Donnelly presents us with a protagonist who is so bright, yet so innocent. Her insecurities about her talent, her brilliance, her strength, and her sexuality speak true to any girl or woman who has struggled to identify herself against a backdrop of life's hard-knock circumstances. Having finished this novel, my eyes welled with tears for Mattie and for Grace and for me. It is a historical fiction that touches upon racism, platonic female-male friendships, women's liberation, censorship and intellectual freedom, and, most of all, what it's like to be...a girl. My heart swells with hope for Mattie and for the sadness of the loss of Grace's life. Such a strong read. Totally deserving of the honors that it's received since having been first published.
    • 4/5
      A historical fiction book about a murder at a famous resort in New York in the early 1900's. The young girl that comes to work at the resort sees it all and find the truth.
    • 4/5
      I think I'm pretty easy on books, I default to 4 stars. I reason I didn't go all the way to 5 with this one is that its a girl book. And not to be confused with girly, just has a female audience, clearly. A solid read about growing up and making hard decisions. Donnelly creates a great setting and an engaging story, especially for historical fiction which I'm not the biggest fan of.
    • 3/5
      I just remembered having read this charming young adult novel quite a few years ago. My opinion on this book may, therefore, be of litte use, but the fact that I add this book after all means that it is a book that is somewhat worth remembering.

      The main character is a smart girl named Mattie, who has a passion for the learning of new words. To achieve this, she opens the dictionary at a random page every day and picks a word, which she challenges herself to use over the course of the remains of the day. A nifty little idea that works well throughout the entire novel.

      The specifics have fled from my mind like bunnies from a pitbull, but still. A charming novel of which I keep good memories.