A review by ps_stillreading
Blue Light Hours by Bruna Dantas Lobato

emotional reflective slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Loveable characters? Yes

5.0

 

Blue Light Hours by Bruna Dantas Lobato is a welcome addition to what I lovingly call quiet books–books that are more introspective, that highlight the mundane and the little things that typically go unnoticed, books where not a lot happens but really, you can feel something happening. Blue Light Hours is that kind of book. 

We have a daughter, who moves from Brazil to attend a liberal arts college in Vermont. Leaving the only home she’s ever known, she now has to navigate this new life, new place, new language, new people. But home is never far from her mind. In the evenings she Skypes with her mother, and through a small screen and spotty internet connection, mother and daughter update each other about their lives. Both grapple with this huge change and how it shifts their identities. A daughter far away and growing into a new person, a mother alone at home facing a daughter-shaped gap that she must now fill with something else.

Although their paths seem to diverge, they never lose the deep connection and love that they have for each other.

Dantas Lobato’s writing here is quite pared down, which might feel cold to some, but to me, goes perfectly with the daughter’s feeling of being a stranger in a new land. She is simultaneously grateful for the opportunity to study abroad, but also feeling homesick and unmoored from everything she has ever known. There are passages in the book where mother and daughter talk about how they now only exist on a screen. It’s a running joke between them that they are hosts to their own show, reporting the news of their lives. And isn’t that both happy and sad?

The novel is full of mundane observations, simple little things that don’t really add up to something in the grand scheme of things, but in loneliness take on a poignant light. Piles of dirty laundry shoved out of view from the computer screen. Watching the snow fall outside the window. Seeing a familiar vase in the background of a Skype call. Giving the mother a dorm tour through the laptop, then asking to be shown the view from outside the window back at home. The blue light from the laptop screen while waiting on a video call late at night.Making a cup to tea to keep you company. These moments reminded me of passages from Beautiful World, Where Are You. Think Sally Rooney writing about the light in Simon’s sad, empty apartment, with his dirty dishes in the sink, which is then contrasted at the end of the chapter when Eileen comes over and the apartment feels brighter. These still life scenes feel like a visual treat, as well as a deceptively simple way to portray that life keeps happening no matter what.

Literary nerds who love the discourse of why the curtains are blue would love the title Blue Light Hours and how blue light appears throughout the novel. I get it, I love it too. Blue light, often considered clinical, cold, or lonely, in this novel becomes the color of warmth, of security, of a deep and enduring connection. Of home.

I was at a cafe when I started reading this book, and in the table next to me was a mother and daughter spending some quality time together. I couldn’t hear their conversation, but there were tears shed, and lots of laughter in the end. This must be the type of relationship the mother and daughter had in the book, before she left study abroad. This was the type of relationship my mother and I had before I too, moved away for college. I knew that this book would be a very emotional read for me because of how much I could relate to the daughter. And my goodness, this book made me feel so seen. 

This is for the daughters of single mothers. For daughters with a complicated/okay/good relationship with their mothers. For daughters who view their mothers as friends. For the daughters who moved away, but still hold home in their hearts.

I’m so excited for this book to come out, and for more people to read it. Mark your calendars for the Blue Light Hours release day on October 15.
Many, many thanks to NetGalley, Grove Atlantic, and Bruna Dantas Lobato for the ARC!