Author: Lily Myers   Published: 2017

Genres: Poetry, Contemporary, Mental Health, YA

By: Ashlin

Lily Myers’s novel This Impossible Light is an abstract glimpse into Ivy’s life as she experiences a chain of changes in her life, not all of which are for the better. 

This book is beautiful, eloquent and insightful. Ivy is seeing changes in her appearance as she develops a more womanly figure; changes in the relationship she has with her friends as a result of stress and isolation; and changes in her home dynamic after her parents separate and her father moves out. The pressure she feels to excel at school adds another layer of stress. Myers realistically describes the feeling of being overwhelmed by change after change, problem after problem, and how Ivy deals with this. I found it very interesting how Ivy rationalised turning to an eating disorder as a means of coping with this stress. 

In the end, this book carries some beautiful messages that we should remind ourselves of more often. Most importantly, is the encouragement to seek help when you need it. Ivy tries to deal with her problems internally and we watch as this builds up and builds up and then becomes too much. 

I would also like to add that this book is written almost as a series of poems, although not quite as abstract. This creativity is another one of the reasons why I so greatly enjoyed reading This Impossible Light.

This Impossible Light – Goodreads details here.