Book Review: All That’s Bright and Gone by Eliza Nellums

This was a very unusual but very engaging and interesting story – even if I didn’t always buy that it was being narrated by a six-year old… I have a six-year old. A VERY precocious, verbose, clever six-year old (if I may say so myself) with a sharp mind who seems years beyond her age much of the time. So I’m familiar with Aoife’s breed (and more than a little partial to it). Fortunately for us all, our story is NOTHING LIKE HERS – beyond the presence of the aforementioned six-year old. But even accepting that trauma can age a child, I struggled to keep reminding myself that the self-aware (and even in her childish misconceptions she was always that) narrator of this incredible tale was a child…

I can see where some readers may lose the story in that. I didn’t – and was surprised, because I usually don’t take to adult stories with child narrators because most authors have a difficult time finding the right tone or voice that balances the linguistic/observational skills of the child with the necessary revelatory requirements of the narrator. Nellums did the best job I’ve ever seen at walking that wire, and if it occasionally required me to forget Aoife’s age for the sake of the narration, it did so in a fairly seamless and non-disruptive fashion that deserves a lot of credit. But that’s not all she deserves a lot of credit for – she also deserves it for telling an original, engaging, entertaining tale that is about a child but also about the more fundamental need we all have to understand, to be loved, and to find our truth in the midst of the misunderstandings, protections, and secrets of those around us.

This is a lovely and heartbreaking story that genuinely surprised me at multiple turns. Aoife is a delight and the magical realism that edges her world was brilliant, offering just the right mix of magic and confusion and acceptance of whatever comes that is the hallmark of childhood. Nellums wrote a beautiful paean to family and love here, and she did it without preaching or sappiness or tropes. The story folded in on itself like origami, with each fold seeming a bit random but adding up to a marvelous “AHA!” at the end. I loved it and am definitely keeping Nellums on my watch list…

Thank you to NetGalley for my review copy.