Rating: 
Summary: A review of A Northern Light
Review: A Northern Light, by Jennifer Donnelly, is a historical fiction about the real-life murder of Grace Brown. The story is a new twist on what happened, with some changes on what is known to be true.
The book is set in 1906 in the Adirondacks and it is about a teenage girl named Mattie Gokey. Mattie is extremely smart and loves writing. She lives with her father, and three younger sisters on their farm. Their mother died of breast cancer a few years earlier and her older brother left not long after. Since she is the oldest, she takes over her mother's work. The only reason she is allowed to go to high school is because her mother wanted her to get a diploma, otherwise her father would make her work on the farm. Her dream was to go to Barnard College in New York. The book shows what commonly happened during this time. Children would have to quit school to help with their families farm. Not many women went to college but Mattie was determined to go.
A Northern Light shows different views and ideas of this time. Mattie's father wants her to work on the farm and to forget about school. He is hard on her and makes her chores priority to school. Mattie's teacher, Miss Wilcox, is a modern woman who believes that Mattie should go to college and become a writer. She is rich and resembles a flapper of the 1920's. She is interested, drives a car and smokes. Mattie's fiancé, Royal Loomis, quit school to work on his father's farm. He wants to save money to buy his own land. He loves farming and he doesn't understand Mattie's love of English. Mattie's best friend is Weaver Smith. He is the only African-American boy in the county, but like Mattie he is very smart and he wants to go to Columbia to become a lawyer. In the book his character faces racism and hate that was common in the time.
A Northern Light is in 3rd person. Mattie is the speaker in the book. Since Mattie is very good in English, most of the book is in proper English. Jennifer Donnelly also used some dialect when other character's where speaking. The language that she used showed the character's level of education, and usually Mattie corrects it because of her love of English. One example is when her sister, Lou, is speaking. "`I don't want no part of baby word games,' Lou grumbled. `Any, Lou. Any part,'" I snapped." (15)
I enjoyed A Northern Light and found it to be a wonderful book. I am interested in historical fiction, especially about someone my age. Also it was suspenseful. The first chapter is about a dead body found in the lake at the camp Mattie is working at during the summer. The next chapter goes back about four months to about March. From there the story keeps skipping back from then and back to the summer and so forth until they catch up to one another. At times it can be a little confusing, but after a few chapters it is easy to tell what point in time is being talked about in that chapter.
One thing that I did not like was how little background about the murder was talked about. In the Author's note at the end of the book, Jennifer Donnelly give more information about the real murder and trial. The story centered around Mattie, a fictional character, and though the murder was also a big part of the book, I think there should have been a little more about it than what was in the story.
I completely recommend A Northen Light by Jennifer Donnelly. It talks about a really time in history interestingly. It shows some of the things that really happened in that time in a way that is easy to understand. It also tells the story of a girl that could have lived there and about the obstacles in the way of her dreams that were effected by that time period.
Rating:
Summary: A MUST READ!
Review: A Northern Light Pros/Cons Spread by "Reviewer K"
Pros:
~Beauitful imagery
~Wonderful plotline
~Interesting and suspenseful
Cons:
~Plot jumps around a lot and may confuse younger readers
~ I thought there would be more about the letters, but there wasn't much. That was the only thing I would have liked to see changed.
Overall:
~Stars: 5+
~I could really relate to Mattie and found her story inspiring. Any book lover will fall in love with this book and the characters in it.
Rating:
Summary: NOT JUST FOR YOUNG ADULTS--FOR ANYONE WHO LOVES A GREAT READ
Review: I finished A Northern Light in a weekend; what a pleasure! I don't fit the intended young adult demographic, but I've always had an interest in children's and young adult literature as a result of my many careers.Ms. Donnelly brilliantly captures the boom era of the 1900s New York Adirondack Mountain region. The story of Mattie Gokey, a young woman coming of age and struggling with difficult life choices, is a familiar story to most female readers. Her determination to become a writer reminded me of my own career aspirations. I found myself holding my breath and sighing with relief when Maddie finally decided her fate.
A Northern Light will stir passion, and even raise ire, among the young women who are fortunate to discover this beautiful book. Many readers will recognize themselves in Mattie, her teacher, Miss Wilcox, or even Weaver, her friend and fellow wordsmith. Most importantly, A Northern Light can be appreciated by readers of all ages, not just young adults, who appreciate great writing. A truly enjoyable read; I hope there's a sequel on the way. Also recommended: The Lightkeeper's Daughter, Witch Child
Rating:
Summary: A great book! i couldn't put it down!
Review: I found this book at the school library's new book shelf, i decided to read it and i was so glad that i did. This is about a girl living with her family and how she solves her problems and deals with the people she meets. After reading this book, I thought about life and people differently. I would recommend this book to people 12 years or older because it deals with some issues that may be....yea you get the idea. Overall, this is a great book. After reading this book, I also read other books by Jennifer Donnelly, they were also very good, but i felt this one was the best!
Rating:
Summary: I love it!
Review: I read the UK edition of this book titled 'A Gathering Light'. It is a fantastic book and had me hooked from the very beginning. Admittedly I am quite a sucker for turn of the century novels involving rural communities, but it was the way Jennifer Donnelley worked with historical fact and made her characters believable and engaging that made the novel stand out. The research that had gone into the book made it all the more believable, from the farm chores to food to how it is like to work in a posh hotel frequented in summer by ignorant and snobbish city people. I especially liked the main character Mattie and her play with words, as well as her relationship with Weaver, her best friend who is black. The dilemmas that Mattie comes face to face with brings out her maturity and sensibility, as well as the fact that she is a child and acts like one sometimes. She has a mischievious streak, but is also very generous and is able to see people for that they are rather than what they do. The discourses on racism in America post slavery and the battle between one's responsibilities to family and that to one's self was realistic and moving. This is sacrilege, but if a TV series/ movie is made out of this, I am watching it for certain!! A wonderful, uplifting book filled with fascinating characters, drama, suspense and poignant social and political messages, this is a must read!
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Summary: Choices, Responsibilities and Deliverance
Review: Mattie Gokey is nearly finished with high school, growing up in the darkly forested, land of lakes, known as the North Woods. Her mother died,leaving with her the last words "stay home and take care of the family". She finds the diary of dying words belonging to a young woman whose body is recovered from the nearby resort lake, and she struggles with those epistles throughout the book, just as she struggles with her own desires to go to school at Barnard in New York and become the writer she is destined to be.
This book is about choices that you make when you are young and inexperienced at having your voice heard. She nearly marries popular, good looking, but boring Royal Loomis. This book is about the profound influence adults, not parents, can make on teenagers as well. Her teacher, the noted author Emily Baxter, hiding out in the North Woods and teaching high school, encourages her to go to college. Ms. Baxter's story and the diary of the heart-broken, drowned girl cause Mattie to wonder if she should honor her mother's words and follow her romantic intentions with Royal afterall, staying in her hometown and relinquishing her dreams of becoming an author.
The three subplots in this book, Mattie, the dead girl, and Ms. Baxter, all reflect the conflict Mattie feels over the responsibility she has for her own choices and dreams.
I loved the writing in this book, in the first person of Mattie. She describes the beauty and harshness of the north woods, of romance, and of the fragility of a young girls hopes and dreams.
Rating: 
Summary: Your book.
Review: Much has already been written by other reviewers about this
truly exceptional, award winning novel, all I can add is:
this has become one of my favorite books, because it is
sensitively written, extremely well researched, full of
wonderful characters and has a great story line.
Rating: 
Summary: a word of concern
Review: Northern Lights is an appealing story with good local color of upstate New York in the early twentieth century, but the story is spoiled with a few sexual descriptions inserted I suppose to sound more "modern" for this generation. I've decided after reading the book not to give it to my teenager for Christmas. Young men grabbing breasts, and old men's erections, and hairy behinds are not what I want to encourage my daughter to read. I'll have her stick to the classics and forget ALA recommendations from now on.
Rating:
Summary: Defying the Star
Review: The characters are believable, with their way of thinking and acting, not like some misplaced 21st century ones. Sometimes Mattie's pace of mind can make you want to shake her to just wake up! But that only shows how different it is to be really living the period than just reading it.
The murder case, which built up by including some of Grace Brown's letters, are well combined with Mattie's fictional life. The bitterness and the realization that came from it were used to help Mattie decide what to do with her life. I must admit that I don't quite catch why Grace's death could motivate Mattie to set her mind other than they were both teenage girls and one had failed to continue her life because of wrong choices she made and their persistence to believe things according to what they want to believe. Grace still believed in Chester 'Carl' though he said about having fun without her and Mattie believed in secure feeling with her boyfriend though he was certainly lack interest in her passion with books.
What interest me most are the words, the main thread in this book. Whether how words are not just words and all the new terms I have never known such as gravid, which had its moment when Grace's ghost said it. With a vigorous poem as opener, some stories about famous authors and some poems for comparisons and nuances, added up the volume of thoughts in it.
Rating:
Summary: Good work
Review: The main thing that I liked about this book wasn't necessarily the plot or anything else, it was the historical part. Often this time period (early 1900s) is romanticized. In this book the truth about the time is told with the nitty-gritty details, but the author keeps some of the romance about the time in it. Also I think that the thoughts of Mattie are what I would have wondered about. Like why all the female writers never married and if they did it wasn't happy. Those things made this book good and an enjoyable read. Some younger people that try to read this book may have problems at first trying to follow the story because the plot skips back and forth.
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