Katya Balen, The Light in Everything, Bloomsbury, July 2022, 336 pp., RRP $14.99 (pbk), ISBN 9781526647405
I read The Light in Everything in one sitting, and yes, I one hundred per cent cried by the end.
I didn’t expect to – when I started The Light in Everything, I was introduced to Zofia and Tom, two very different kids thrown together when their parents fall in love, and Tom’s mother gets pregnant.
Katya Balen’s writing drew me in even before I realised what was happening, delicately creating two very different characters in short, alternate chapters. Every word on the page matters in this book, all of it coming together to create vivid portraits of Tom and Zofia.
Tom has PTSD from his experiences with his abusive father and bears the emotional scars of that and from having to flee from him. He is afraid of the dark, with good reason, but knows that everything about him makes him prime material for bullying. It’s always been him and his mother against the world — until now.
Zofia and her father are a boisterous pair, and Zofia is somewhat hot-headed and quick to anger. These feelings intensify when her father springs a new girlfriend and family on her. It’s always been her and her father against the world, and she doesn’t like change – she especially isn’t fond of Tom, who is her age, but looks much younger.
The two of them could not be more opposite, but Balen’s writing is delicate, with each child’s emotion feeling authentic. It’s clear they regret the awful things they say to their parents and to each other during the book.
It’s hard to explain how a book can wrap you in the emotion of the story without you realising it, but that’s honestly what happened for me. I cringed at their behaviour in some spots, and in others wanted more for them, and I cheered for them when they found their way out of emotional minefields to finally arrive at a certain type of peace for different reasons.
The Light in Everything is incredibly emotional, and there is so much more to Zofia and Tom than the blurb suggests. I wait for readers to embrace this title!
Reviewed by Verushka Byrow
