Light years by Hattie Williams

Light Years by Hattie Williams
⭐ 3.75/5 stars

Thank you to NetGalley and Ballantine Books for the advance reading copy!

Light Years is a deeply emotional, often heartbreaking portrait of codependency, trauma bonding, and the complicated ways two people can love each other without necessarily being good for each other.

Pinky and Jono grew up together in a small, somewhat depressed coastal town in England. Both came from difficult family backgrounds, and they found comfort and stability in each other long before their friendship evolved into a romantic relationship. But what begins as a lifeline eventually becomes something far more complicated, and neither seems capable of letting go, even when their relationship is clearly doing more harm than good.

Spanning the years from 2004 to 2014, this is essentially the rise and fall of a love story, although I hesitate to call it a romance. It’s an intimate examination of two damaged people who cling to each other long after they should have walked away.

And at times, it is genuinely difficult to read.

I loved Hattie Williams’s debut, Bittersweet, and I continue to think she is an extraordinarily talented writer. She has a remarkable ability to create deeply flawed, fully realized characters who inspire both compassion and frustration. I suspect readers who enjoy Sally Rooney’s work will find a lot to appreciate here. Williams has that same gift for exploring the uncomfortable spaces between love, attachment, and emotional dependency.

Something else I find fascinating about Williams’s writing is that her novels almost feel like historical fiction to me, despite being set in the relatively recent past. There is a sense of hindsight woven throughout her storytelling. As readers, we can recognize patterns, warning signs, and emotional dynamics that the characters themselves simply aren’t equipped to understand yet. We know things they don’t, and that makes watching their choices unfold all the more painful.

Ultimately, I found this book more traumatic than romantic. It’s a rather sad story, and some of the emotional dynamics were genuinely triggering. I spent much of the novel wishing that Pinky and Jono could recognize what they were doing to themselves and find a healthier path forward, whether together or apart.

I admired the writing more than I enjoyed the experience of reading it, and I think that’s an important distinction. This is a beautifully crafted novel, but it isn’t an easy one. Williams doesn’t romanticize the damage these characters inflict on one another, and she doesn’t offer easy answers.

By the end, I simply wanted better for both of them.

3.75 stars. A beautifully written, emotionally exhausting character study about the difference between loving someone and being unable to let them go.