Shine

by Lauren Myracle

[leahrosereads]

3.5 Stars

I read SHINE for Anti-Bullying Week, and while it was a decent book, I had some issues with connecting with the main character, Cat.

Of course, there’s the age difference. As an adult who enjoys reading YA, I don’t actually believe that’s ever a true issue with my disconnect with a main character, and I don’t believe it was here. For this book, it was the religious differences between Cat and I. I like to believe that I’m a good person, and Cat seemed like one too, but her faith in God and her church community was something that I just found very naive. It’s absolutely because I wasn’t raised in that environment, and I attempted really hard to look past it. However, it was such an important part of her being, that to look past it, would have removed depth from Cat, and I just didn’t want to ruin the book for myself.

And it wasn’t just Cat, the community itself was a very religious one, and while I thought Cat’s faith was genuine, there were other characters in the book (and I think it was done on purpose) whose faith seemed false, or that they weren’t quite as open and all about love and understanding as the Bible and Christians like to preach. I don’t know.


What I do know, is that outside of the religious aspects and undertones of the characters, the story itself was interesting. I really enjoyed the mystery elements of it, and Cat’s Nancy Drewing it up for most of the book. I wanted justice for Patrick, and I thought that he was due it. To be openly gay in any community can be tough, but for a small rural community (I grew up in one just not in the South), Patrick had some serious strength to be willing and to want to be out and proud.

I really liked that Myracle was able to keep me interested in the story from start to finish, and while I couldn’t connect to the characters on my religious (or lack thereof) views, I was happy that I was able to connect with these characters on other levels. Each one of them was flawed in very real ways, and it helped make this story believable and a real worthy read.

So while I may have had some issues with the characters themselves, overall the story won me over, and the characters themselves by the end of the novel, took shape and I was able to look past my personal issues and just enjoy the story for what it was.


I thought that Myracle did an outstanding job at creating SHINE and, I’ll definitely be willing to try other novels by her in the future.