Item Details
Sign up

When the Lights Go Out

Book
3
Ratings1
Reviews0
Followers0
Q's
When the Lights Go Out
When the Lights Go Out
Highlights Images Videos
7.7
No Media

This item doesn’t have any media yet

Add New Image or Add New Video
When the Lights Go Out

2020 | Dystopia | Fiction & Poetry

Emma is beginning to wonder whether relationships, like mortgages, should be conducted in five-year increments. She might laugh if Chris had bought a motorbike or started dyeing his hair. Instead he's buying off-label medicines and stockpiling food.

Chris finds Emma's relentless optimism exasperating. A tot of dread, a nip of horror, a shot of anger - he isn't asking much. If she would only join him in a measure of something.

The family's precarious eco-system is further disrupted by torrential rains, power cuts and the unexpected arrival of Chris's mother. Emma longs to lower a rope and winch Chris from the pit of his worries. But he doesn't want to be rescued or reassured - he wants to pull her in after him.

Darkly funny and beautifully written, When the Lights Go Out is a novel for our times: a story about cultivating hope and weathering change.

Related Items:
No related items currently exists - add one now
Carys Bray
Published by Hutchinson
Literary Fiction Climate Change

Main Image Courtesy: Goodreads.
Images And Data Courtesy Of: Hutchinson.
This content (including text, images, videos and other media) is published and used in accordance with Fair Use.

Added By

ClareR

Added this item on Nov 17, 2020

Changelog > Edited By
When the Lights Go Out Reviews & Ratings (3)
9-10
33.3% (1)
7-8
33.3% (1)
5-6
33.3% (1)
3-4
0.0% (0)
1-2
0.0% (0)
Sorting

Post Type

Hidden Post

Archived Post

When the Lights Go Out reviews from people you don't follow
40x40

ClareR (5879 KP) rated

Nov 17, 2020  
When the Lights Go Out
When the Lights Go Out
Carys Bray | 2020 | Dystopia, Fiction & Poetry
10
7.7 (3 Ratings)
Book Rating
When the Lights Go Out is not just about climate change and the disaster that we seem to be hurtling towards. It’s also about a marriage: Emma and Chris’ marriage. I seem to be having a really good run with books lately. This is a book where not overly much happens on the surface, but it’s packed full of action if you look at the way that it’s scrutinising Emma and Chris’ marriage. These are two people who have a lot going on. They have both been pushed to their limits, and whilst Emma seems to be dealing with the changes in her life, Chris is really struggling. He is constantly plagued by thoughts of ‘worst case scenarios’. He stockpiles food and fuel in the garage, he buys fish antibiotics just in case the human version is unobtainable. And he tests his family’s resourcefulness by turning off the electricity in their home to make sure they can cope - and leads them to believe it’s a power cut. Chris is unhappy. Work is very slow - no one needs a gardener if it rains non-stop and the garden is submerged, or if it gets so hot that nothing survives to tend to. Money is tight since Emma lost her job when the library where she worked closed, and she works part time in a school, supplementing her income with her craft work.

Everything comes to a dramatic head on Christmas Eve - and I don’t think I was capable of breathing properly for the last couple of chapters.

This sounds like a morose, depressing read, but it really wasn’t. There are some really quite funny bits interspersed with the more serious aspects - I thought it was really well balanced, and I loved reading it.
(3)