How To Be Luminous

by Harriet Reuter Hapgood

[Sam@WLABB]

All the color disappeared from her world along with her mother. While trying to remedy the situation, Minnie worries that she might have inherited more than her mother's artistic ability.

My love for grief and loss books was really satisfied by How to Be Luminous. This book was beautiful, heartbreaking, and poignant. Hapgood's exploration of grief was well executed, and she did a beautiful job capturing the different ways people deal with great losses.

The story was told from the point of view of Minnie, the middle Sloe daughter, but her sisters also played a big role in the story. The three young women were dealing with their mother's disappearance in vastly different ways, and I always appreciate, when the complexities of people's sorrow is shown from different perspectives, because grief is not a one-size-fits-all thing. Hapgood show the good, the bad, and the ugly sides of mourning, and was really able to convey the emotions attached with this process.

The Sloe sisters had put their mother on a pedestal, and would explain away her moods as "starlight and sinkholes". After much soul-searching, and the discovery of a box of prescription drugs, they realized that there was an explanation for their mother's behavior. It was sad to see the girls finally accept that their mother's highs and lows were symptoms of her mental illness, and I felt their pain and anguish with having to admit it to themselves. This conflicted with their vision of who their mother was, and it was obvious how difficult it was for the teens to comes to terms with it.

Throughout the story, Minnie was trying to deal with her emotions, her monochromatism, and the ghost of her mother. By examining the past and making some poor decisions, Minnie was able to process her grief as she discovered new things about herself.

In addition to grief and loss, I love stories with siblings, and this was one interesting trio. Each sister was dealing with the loss of their mother, but there were also some old wounds to contend with. Things were touch and go with the sisters for a while, but in the end, they were there for each other, and I was really pleased with the way Hapgood handled their situation.

Overall: This was a beautifully written book about how people grieve and struggle to come to terms with their loss.

*ARC provided in exchange for an honest review.

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