It’s 1949, early in the Cold War, but St. Petersburg, Florida is warm, lush, and booming with newcomers seeking sunshine and opportunity. For seventeen-year-old Nora, St. Pete feels like paradise, especially after she meets and wins over Leonard, the shy, brilliant son of transplanted New Yorkers. Nora and Leonard are soon spending balmy days and evenings together, and in her adoring, encouraging company, he grows more confident, even as he remains tender and caring. Leonard’s sophisticated mother welcomes Nora into their lives, but his father distrusts her motives.
When his suspicions are seemingly confirmed, Nora is forced to cut contact. In her longing and fear, she takes a chance that changes her life, exiling her from the family she loves and setting off a chain of secrets and betrayals that will follow her into adulthood. It is a mature Nora who tells the story of her turbulent past. Wiser and more worldly, she commits to an honest but compassionate account, and to a future based on trusting, first and foremost, herself.
Sunlight Finds You is, ultimately, a love story set in the past that has much to say about our present. Richly layered and propulsive, it’s a book about extending forgiveness—for ourselves, and for others—and about refusing to settle for a life that is less than full.
Review
Nora is a clever, sensitive and likable teenage girl. She considers herself to be a bad liar, and as such, strives to live her life as honestly as possible. But that proves impossible when she is torn between her own desires – her first love, Leonard – and the prevailing 1950s expectations around what it means to be a proper young woman. Her honesty also makes her rather trusting of others – something those around her use to their advance.
I did not exactly inhale Sunlight Finds You; I read the first few chapters over several weeks, finding the set up to be a little slow, but then my reading pace sped up once Nora’s situation became more complicated. It’s hard to write about why I loved this book without spoiling the inciting plot point, which the synopsis hints at but does not outline explicitly. This event sends Nora’s life down a particular trajectory, and things will never be the same.
I have shared some thoughts on this plot point below without spoiling the rest of the book.
The novel excels at exploring the impacts that this adoption has on Nora’s life: her relationship with Leonard and his family, her school community’s reaction, and how it affects her future romantic prospects. To quote The Perks of Being a Wallflower: we accept the love we think we deserve.
This novel touches on several types of grief: the grief of losing a parent at a young age, of being estranged from family members, of drifting apart from friends, of not knowing a loved one’s fate during a war. Characters must also grapple with abuse, regret, shame, and self-worth.
Overall, I highly recommend Sunlight Finds You for readers seeking a character-driven, atypical coming of age story: beautifully written historical fiction that does not romanticise the past, but instead emphasises hope even in dark times.
Thank you to Text Publishing for the review copy.
Review by Elise
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