Rate this book

Clear rating

1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars

Cold Light

3.02 of 5 stars 3.02 · rating details · 416 ratings · 124 reviews

I'm sitting on my couch, watching the local news. There's Chloe's parents, the mayor, the hangers on, all grouped round the pond for the ceremony. It's ten years since Chloe and Carl drowned, and they've finally chosen a memorial - a stupid summerhouse. The mayor has a spade decked out in pink and white ribbon, and he's started to dig.

You can tell from their faces that som...more

Hardcover, 344 pages

Published April 1st 2011 by Sceptre (first published January 24th 2011)

more details... edit details

Get a copy:

More…

Friend Reviews

To see what your friends thought of this book, please sign up.

Lists with This Book

This book is not yet featured on Listopia. Add this book to your favorite list »

Community Reviews

(showing 1-30 of 2,694)

filter | sort: default (?) | rating details

Aug 22, 2012 karen rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: thank-you-bea-or-ala, distant-lands

the more i think about this book, the less i like it. and now i have put off writing the review for four days,and i don't even care...

it started off really strong for me, with a great premise, but i was a bit let down by the ending. and by ending, i mean the last 100 pages, pretty much.

see- here's the thing - i got up to page 62, and i forgot this thing at home, it was devastating. i had nothing to read on the subway going in to work, and had to actually look at people. it was the worst. so i b...more

39 likes · like · see review

Sep 28, 2012 Jeanette rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: all-fiction, europe-and-british-isles, young-adult-books

3.5 stars. Maybe.
This one smells like teen spirit. I'm okay with that, but I'm becoming increasingly irritated with book marketing schemes that mislead readers by not tagging a book as a young adult selection. Not that it's unsuitable for adults. It's well written and the plot is intriguing, but it's heavy on the teen hangout scene, with kids trying to be cool and ganging up on the weak.

This is a story that starts off dark and becomes darker and darker still. It made me glad I don't have childr...more

13 likes · like · see review

Aug 21, 2012 switterbug (Betsey) rated it 4 of 5 stars

The cover of Jenn Ashworth’s second novel (the American cover) is badly misleading and presents as teenage-chick-lit-murder-kitsch trash preening to take itself seriously. However, when you start reading, you realize that you are in the hands of an evocative, acutely observant writer who may, in the not-too distant future, pen a novel that earns a spot on the Booker long-list. She can turn a phrase, spin raw into bold, scour us with prose.

Ashworth writes searchingly, hauntingly, and meticulously...more The cover of Jenn Ashworth’s second novel (the American cover) is badly misleading and presents as teenage-chick-lit-murder-kitsch trash preening to take itself seriously. However, when you start reading, you realize that you are in the hands of an evocative, acutely observant writer who may, in the not-too distant future, pen a novel that earns a spot on the Booker long-list. She can turn a phrase, spin raw into bold, scour us with prose.

Ashworth writes searchingly, hauntingly, and meticulously about teenage restiveness and jealousy; growing up with a mentally unstable parent; how the media erects false monuments; predators and predatory nature; and the inner lives of people short-circuited by guilt and shame, shut down by life at a young age. Her narrators are unreliable, abject, contrary.

Think indie film, back when indie films weren’t an industry of precious, quirky, star-making features, but rather ensemble pieces shown partly in grainy texture, in an atmosphere that is “shrieky and curious and raw.” This is somewhere in an economically depressed place in Lancashire, near the Ribble Valley. Laura, now twenty-four, lives in the council flats and works as a cleaner in the local shopping center. She’s pallid and dingy with limp hair and acne scars. Everything in her flat seems coated in a furry substance.

Laura turns to the TV for a broadcast memorializing her best friend, Chloe, fourteen, who drowned ten years ago with Chloe’s much older boyfriend in an apparent suicide pact on Valentine’s Day, 1998. But no one says “suicide,” they say “tragedy.” The council is erecting a monument, essentially making Chloe a saint. There’s now a rose named for her, called Juliet, as in Romeo and Juliet.

“She was special, when she was alive—but not in the picture-perfect way people think of her now. Being dead has turned her into a final draft.”

This “concrete folly” being erected is “half a monument to love gone wrong and half a nice piece of publicity for the City’s urban renewal programme--… something for the teenagers to [smoke] their glue in. It’s morbid and sentimental, it ticks all the right boxes for community enterprise funding…”

First on the scene with unexplained deaths and always bursting with bad news, newscaster Terry Best of television’s The City Today mugs up to the camera, as he has been for twenty years. As the cameras roll on the ribbon-cutting with the mayor, a piece of earth is dug with a spade, and another body is unearthed, temporarily taking the limelight off Chloe. Terry’s in his element, though, upstaging Chloe while floridly covering both events—sharp Terry, always ready for seamy, muddy twists, making a living on it, a daily fixture in their lives.

The narrative alternates between the present and the past, a reconstruction of Chloe and Laura’s friendship, with a third wheel, Emma, who, ten years later, is demonstrably more mentally unbalanced than Laura. Emma lives on disability and volunteers at a pet shelter. Emma and Laura have a tenuous bond now, meet for coffee sometimes, and speak dartingly of Chloe.

In the evening, Emma comes by Laura’s flat, after the newly discovered body is declared on the news, and Chloe and Emma share a box of wine and delve deeper into the past. Through these circumspect conversations and inner dialogue, the reader slowly, gradually begins to piece together an accurate picture of the past. We also learn about Laura's family life--her deprivations, her father’s illness, the constant and accumulating terrors of everyday life.

Although the unreliable narrators are integral to the reconstruction of events, at times it feels protracted, and you just want the story to get on with itself. The casual pacing falters at intervals. From the first chapter, you realize that this is not a “detective novel,” per se; however, there is tension from unexplained events. Predators skulk the woods, a person goes missing, shadows lurk. But it is primarily about the accretion of psychological blows, the small bruises and bitter inflictions, and the skewed perceptions of the media, which glimmers on everything but the truth.

“Every single time Emma came up with a fact, I provided one more and she ran out of things to say first, and at the end I was still holding Chloe’s secret in my mouth, like the time we put buttons under our tongues to make us sound posh when we made prank phone calls.”(less)

6 likes · like · see review

Apr 22, 2013 Kari Ramirez rated it 1 of 5 stars · review of another edition

If I could have rated this 0 stars I would have. This review was originally posted on my blog at http://knowitnotsomuch.blogspot.com

I hated this book. Hated. It.

I did not like one character, except for maybe Donald. Though, I didn't really like him, I mainly felt sorry for him. This is truly one of those times when my judging books by their covers utterly failed me.

I think what bothered me most about this book is from the description you expect some sort of mystery/thriller, but instead you're...more

1 like · like · see review

Dec 29, 2012 Max Read rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

“Cold Light” is a mystery/drama novel that delves into the mindset of a trio of teenage girls. The author, Jenn Ashworth, constructs an intriguing look at the innocence and devious nature of three young girls, Chloe, Emma and Laura. The story is narrated by Laura and takes place in a rural town in England where the trio is first engaged in scenes from the middle school there. Something has happened, something tragic and the girls have secrets about what took place. The reader is told that Chloe...more

like · see review

Nov 02, 2012 Girl with her Head in a Book rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 1990s, 2000s, fiction, it-s-grim-up-north, crime, shudder-shudder-shudder

Sooo ... Cold Light. Hmm. Not what I would call a cosy read. I've read quite a few books that I could Appreciate As Pieces Of Literature without actually liking them. Examples which spring to mind are We Need To Talk About Kevin, then earlier this year I also reviewed Gillespie and I which I do strongly recommend. Years ago, I read The Wasp Factory more or less with my eyes half shut and in a permanent state of shuddering. Still, I do think that The Wasp Factory is a masterpiece. Maybe it's beca...more

like · see review

Oct 17, 2012 Cristal rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

When I first read the synopsis of this book, my interest was piqued. Cold Light is a gritty and thought-provoking novel that is told through the eyes of the main character Laura. It is a dark and sad story that dips from present to the past as Laura recounts the events that lead to the recently found body ending up in that location. In the present Laura is a 24 year old woman who cleans a shopping center for a living. She is not very happy sounding with her life, but accepts it. Flashbacks to th...more

like · see review

Oct 13, 2012 FicTalk Blog rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: arc, reviewed-in-2012

Reviewed by Heather

"This is the tale of two fourteen-year-old girls, best friends, and one terrible summer when lies, secrets, jealousy, and perversion ended in tragedy more tangled and evil than a tight-knit community can possibly believe. A dark tale with a surreal edge, Jenn Ashworth's gripping novel captures the intensity of girls' friendships and the dangers of a predatory adult world they are just grown up enough to think they can handle. And it shows just how far that world will go, sacri...more

1 like · like · see review

Sep 13, 2012 Annie Fyfe rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: british, teenagers, friendship, death

The book centers around Laura (or Lola), and looks back on a tragic event that occurred when she was in high school. It goes between present and the time leading up to the accident and all the events and characters surrounding it. This book was not what I had expected, but I still thoroughly enjoyed it. From the cover and description I pictured a somewhat quick, almost YA book about a murder that had happened in a small town. But I was given a much heavier story with very interesting characters...more

like · see review

Mar 24, 2013 Una rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I may be going against the majority of reviews on this book, but I actually liked it and enjoyed the style of writing. By 'like' I mean that I found it an interesting study in teenage life. It brought out the sometimes nonsensical way teenagers view the world, where they themselves and their feelings are paramount. It shows a point at which teenagers haven't yet developed that ability to necessarily look at the wider picture or take a helicopter view of life to see the ramifications of their act...more

like · see review

Oct 24, 2012 Damali rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: everyone but kids

Shelves: adult-and-ya-contemporary

This is the first book I’ve bought from seeing the GR ad, and watching the trailer! But had I not liked the sample, I would not have gotten it. I do love books set in different places, so that added to the enjoyment for me.

Similar to the Pretty Little Liars TV series (I’ve never read the books), a young girl dies 10 years before, and her two best friends still keep her secrets and some of their own. The narrarative switches back and forth from present to the past, and little by little it is reve...more

1 like · like · see review

Jan 05, 2013 Elizabeth rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: mystery

This is an odd book. In fact I sat on reviewing it for several days. And maybe it is 3.5 stars. I wish I could give half stars.

This book is a bit confusing because it jumps back and for from present day to like 10 or 11 years ago when the 3 girls concerned were 14 when one of them committed suicide for love apparently.

Laura/Lola is our narrator. She ends up being somewhat unreliable. Because when a lot of things happened she was only 14 and didn't have the maturity or experience to understand a...more

like · see review

Mar 03, 2013 Colleen rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: mystery, contemporary-fiction

This is definitely not a book that will give you a warm fuzzy feeling. It is a dark book about 3 teenage girls at the age of 14 who testing the waters of growing up by stealing, smoking, drinking and hanging out with an older man. The main character Laura (aka Lola) is an overweight reclusive girl who is befriended by a wild, outgoing and sometimes cruel girl named Chloe. Laura and Chloe are the best of friends until Chloe brings a new friend Emma into the fold and starts seeing an older man nam...more

like · see review

Oct 16, 2012 Julie rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Ten years ago, two teenagers drowned in a pond in England. To memorialize them, the town is erecting a summerhouse beside the pond. But when the mayor pushes the spade into the earth to mark the start of the construction, he pulls up more than just dirt. A body has been buried by the side of the pond, and Lola knows who it is.

Cold Light by Jenn Ashworth is a psychological thriller that really gets at the struggles of teenage friendship and its effects that can be felt for many years. I don't gen...more

1 like · like · see review

Mar 11, 2011 Anne rated it 5 of 5 stars

Jenn Ashworth's first novel 'A Kind of Intimacy' was one of my favourite reads of 2010 so I was thrilled to receive a proof pre-publication copy of 'Cold Light'.

The story of 'Cold Light' revolves around three teenage girls; Chloe, Lola and Emma who live in a small town in Northern England and is narrated by Lola, or Laura as she prefers to be known nowadays. The prologue is set in the present day and it is made clear to the reader that Laura is not the happiest of people and that Chloe has been...more

1 like · like · see review

Oct 30, 2012 Sara Strand rated it 1 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Ok, so I was absolutely intrigued by this book because we've all had that one really best friend who we've done everything with and the thought of not having them is devastating, especially when you're 14. Plus, when you have a tagline like "They found a body. I know who it is." - who doesn't want to read that?
But I was disappointed. I have a really hard time when the writing is so lofty. I mean, to explain one scene takes pages and it makes it really hard for me to continue, let alone care. Di...more Ok, so I was absolutely intrigued by this book because we've all had that one really best friend who we've done everything with and the thought of not having them is devastating, especially when you're 14. Plus, when you have a tagline like "They found a body. I know who it is." - who doesn't want to read that?
But I was disappointed. I have a really hard time when the writing is so lofty. I mean, to explain one scene takes pages and it makes it really hard for me to continue, let alone care. Did I finish the book? I absolutely did because what I discovered is that I didn't like Chloe one bit and not to be cruel, but I kind of wanted her character to be killed. That sounds so totally wrong, but really. Bad egg from the start. But everything about this book is bizarre. You have a teenager with clearly low self esteem (Laura), you have a teenager who is clearly misguided and a bad influence (Chloe), and then you throw in this insane cast of characters- the family, Carl, Wilson, Emma, etc and it's just too much.
Did I see the ending coming? OK, I will admit it and say no, I didn't. I didn't love the ending, but I guess in hindsight it all kind of made sense. It doesn't change the fact that this book was so hard for me to read just because it's written so difficult. Does that make sense? It's like all of this added time was given to lofty paragraphs and drawn out passages that I was so frustrated within the first 100 pages. Then I thought once the story got rolling it would flow better but it didn't.
I really wanted this to be like a Jennifer McMahon where nothing is really what it seems and it blows you away at the end and it just wasn't. It took me three weeks to read this book and that tells you something considering I can get through about 3-4 books in a weekend. I'm a fast reader but I kept losing interest in this one and that was probably the biggest disappointment to me.
BUT.
I am still going to encourage you to read it because I've seen some other readers rave about this book so maybe it's just me. Maybe I'll feel differently if I read this one in a year, maybe I'd love it then. Who knows. Check out Jenn's webpage HERE too because there is a lot more book information that will likely sway you to read this. (less)

2 likes · like · see review

Oct 15, 2012 Nicole Bonia rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Ashworth successfully elucidates the girls’ lives – especially Lola’s. They are fraught with the tensions and allure of dangerous older men, the peril of a flasher – whose crimes are escalating- on the loose, and their own semi-abusive treatment of one another. Lola’s life is further complicated by the delusions of her elderly father, hostile relationship with her mother, and a harsh mixture of guilt and defiance concerning her own actions the year Chloe died. With the mystery of the newly uncov...more

like · see review

Oct 02, 2012 Barbara ~*Lindt Ninja*~ rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: contemporary, blue-covers, edelweiss

For me, the only thing worse than reading a book I want to chuck against a wall is reading one I can’t seem to put down because I’m waiting for something, anything to happen, the entire time feeling like the author has put one over on me. This is a book I’m not ever going to get. I must lack the emotional depth, some obscure college degree or maybe the cultural background to fully appreciate what’s going on because obviously, there’s something happening. I just don’t get it.

Cold Light flips back...more For me, the only thing worse than reading a book I want to chuck against a wall is reading one I can’t seem to put down because I’m waiting for something, anything to happen, the entire time feeling like the author has put one over on me. This is a book I’m not ever going to get. I must lack the emotional depth, some obscure college degree or maybe the cultural background to fully appreciate what’s going on because obviously, there’s something happening. I just don’t get it.

Cold Light flips back and forth between the present and past as Laura revisits the events surrounding the death of her best friend Chloe ten years earlier. As ground is being broken for a memorial on the tenth anniversary of her suicide, another body is found and it’s all broadcast on live television. Emma, the third in Chloe and Laura’s friendship, has kept reluctant, hostile contact with Laura and as the news coverage continues through the night, they sit drinking and sharing painful secrets about Chloe and the things that happened the year they were fourteen.

In just a handful of months, their small English town was terrorized by a flasher-slash-molester going after teenage girls; a young man with Down’s Syndrome went missing; Chloe and her much older boyfriend Carl started a relationship with serious consequences and Laura and Chloe had a massive blowout followed by a tentative truce. Nothing can top what happened that winter though: Chloe and Carl, forbidden to see each other, committed suicide by drowning themselves in a local lake. A rose is named after Chloe, the town mourns – in her death, she is more beloved than she ever could have been in life, her love story impossibly romantic.

None of the main characters were particularly likable. Chloe is selfish, narcissistic, a liar and manipulative while cultivating an image of a pretty blonde angel. She chose Laura and Emma as friends because she could control them and play them off of each other and they did exactly that. Laura is needy, whiny, moody and obsessively jealous over Chloe. Emma is a coarse sycophant who’s obviously been damaged and can’t wait to take Laura’s spot with Chloe. Carl, Chloe’s much older boyfriend is a jerk to everyone, violent and obviously a perv, going after a fourteen-year-old. The descriptions about how everyone smelled were enough to make me queasy. Sweat, cigarettes, wet towels, dirty hair, dirty underwear, greasy lipstick – on and on. Nobody ever smelled good or had good skin. By the end I think I understood why I wasn’t supposed to like anyone, that there was a point to be made about all of us having a degree and depth of ugliness you can’t see on the surface. But then again, maybe I just didn’t get it.

As disturbing, uneasy and like an outsider this book made me feel, I still couldn’t put it down, which is why it gets a middling grade instead of a really low one. Each page I turned I kept thinking would be my last, then something would happen and I’d think, “just a few more.” The story has a train wreck quality to it – every encounter these people have with each other, you can almost feel the clock ticking down. When Laura’s with her parents, there’s an air of resigned hopelessness between them all. The reporter on-scene Terry, with his trademark pink shirts, is a grotesque parody of the veneered, shellacked anchorman. The one normal, likable character that I felt any sympathy for was the character whose body was found.

I’m a little at a loss about what my final thoughts are. I know it’s possible to hate all the characters but love the book but I’m still not sure how I feel about the whole thing. The ending threw me off a bit too – it really did emphasize that people aren’t who you think they are. My advice: read the other reviews too and decide based on all the information. I’m still not sure if I just didn’t get it.

My thanks to Edelweiss and William Morrow Paperbacks for the review copy(less)

1 like · like · see review

Feb 09, 2012 Kell rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: read-in-2012, reviewed-for-author-publisher

There's something quite addictively compelling about this coming-of-age story focusing on the friendship (and sometime enmity) of three girls on the cusp of adulthood in the mid-to-late 90s. While reading it, I felt like there were constant warning signals flashing on and off as my adult mind could see the danger in the situations these girls got themselves into, but they couldn't seem to see it themselves.

The jumping back and forth between the teenage years and ten years later sometimes jolted...more

like · see review

Sep 28, 2012 Brenda rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: first-reads

All the characters in Jenn Ashworth's Cold Light are River's-Edge horrible to one another.

Sometimes, when I'm reading books or watching movies of this nature, I have this mantra running through my head, "Please let the end justify the means." Occasionally, after the last page has turned or the last frame has faded, I'm disgusted that I even made the effort.

However, I'm relieved to say that I do not feel that I wasted my time with Ashworth's novel even though I can't imagine willingly subjectin...more

like · see review

Oct 24, 2012 Alicia rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 2012-books-read, 2012-reviews

I don’t know how to write about this book, and it frustrates me. I’ll start here: I was so excited to see that Jenn Ashworth had a new book coming out. I loved A Kind of Intimacy, and I was so eager for this new book. The cover looked amazing, and the description sounded dark and twisted - just like her previous book. However, as I began to read I soon realized that this one would be a little difficult to get in to.

This book starts out slowly, and the read has no idea what is going on at first....more

like · see review

Aug 06, 2012 Karly added it · review of another edition

Shelves: above-the-treeline, arc

Cold Light was a struggle to get through and I almost gave up on it a few times. I kept waiting for it to get better, but was repeatedly disappointed. All told, it was a rather depressing book that fell flat in its delivery. While I'm usually intrigued by the back and forth between the past and the present, much of what was occurring in the present was boring and dragged out the story rather than contributing to it.

The relationships between the characters lacked depth and some should have been...more

like · see review

Jan 01, 2013 Mel rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I liked this book. I didn't love it. The description did it more justice than it deserved. I remember being 14. At that age, everything can seem like the end of the world. Especially fighting with, or the thought of losing your best friend. That being said Laura's character put up with far more than a lot of other 14 year old girls would have. Chloe was mean, cruel, and manipulative. Her character was unlikable almost from the very beginning. Leaving your best friend to get caught when you were...more

like · see review

Oct 28, 2012 Tiffany rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 3-5-stars, adult-mystery, giveaways-won

Really 3.5 stars. This book was interesting... it's not a book I would have picked up at the store to read, that's for sure, but I don't regret reading it. It took a while for the book to get interesting, but when it did, it held my attention pretty well (which is why it's only getting 3.5 stars from me). The way the chapters were broken up was jarring at first because, one moment, you were in the present, but the next you were in the past, experiencing the pre-teen drama with Lola. I wasn't a f...more

like · see review

Jun 15, 2011 Yellowoasis rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2011, audible

This is a creepily atmospheric book. Lola (Laura) is 14 years old and best friends with Chloe. The story is told in the present time, 10 years after Chloe’s tragic suicide with her boyfriend, and in flashback. Chloe’s not a nice person; she’s manipulative and cruel, but Lola is besotted. She’s also deeply jealous of Chloe’s older boyfriend Carl and another girl, Emma, with whom Chloe has become friends. Added to this, Lola is coping with her brittle mother and slightly loopy father, against a ba...more

like · see review

Feb 13, 2013 Jennifer rated it 1 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 2013

I checked this book out of the library with a 3 week loan period, Normally I read a book a day or so, but this book took me the entire 3 weeks to get through. It was just not good. The only reason I read until the end is that I was curious what happened. I tried to look it up and see who did it, but couldn't find anywhere that told me. I kept picking it up and then getting bored and putting it back down again. And it is obvious for the most part what is happening so it wasn't really that shockin...more

like · see review

Oct 28, 2012 MaryKay rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I won this in a goodreads giveaway.

I'm sorry, but I just couldn't get into this book. Yes, I read the whole thing, but I spent a lot of the book trying to figure out what was going on. It was totally different than what I expected, and I think the cover and the tag line on the cover, "They found a body. I know who it is," was misleading (at least in the way I read it). I thought the book would focus more on the mystery of the discovered body. It didn't, though.

There were lots of different foci...more

like · see review

Nov 07, 2012 Michelle added it · review of another edition

Jenn Ashworth’s second book, Cold Light follows Lola as she reflects back on her childhood friendship with the long-dead Chloe, her tragic demise, and the illicit summer and fall that contributed to her downfall. Told in flashbacks, Lola not only shares the truth behind the terrible events, she inadvertently seeks redemption, or at least a sense of peace, ten years after the events occurred. Two parts murder mystery and one part coming-of-age story, Cold Light shows how dangerous the line betwee...more Jenn Ashworth’s second book, Cold Light follows Lola as she reflects back on her childhood friendship with the long-dead Chloe, her tragic demise, and the illicit summer and fall that contributed to her downfall. Told in flashbacks, Lola not only shares the truth behind the terrible events, she inadvertently seeks redemption, or at least a sense of peace, ten years after the events occurred. Two parts murder mystery and one part coming-of-age story, Cold Light shows how dangerous the line between childhood and adulthood can be, especially for those not ready to cross that line.

Unfortunately, the synopsis makes Cold Light sound much better than it actually is. The story itself slow, and Lola is not the best of narrators. In fact, she is fairly pathetic. Due to either a guilty conscience or an inability to move on from that infamous summer, she hides behind her anonymity and becomes a depressing adult. What is worse is the fact that she realizes her life is in a holding pattern but is not willing to do anything about it. The flashes back in time are jarring, made worse by the mocking tone in which adult Lola tells the story of her last summer of childhood. The ensuing dark tension and angst only antagonizes a reader rather than drawing one more firmly into the story’s grasp.

Perhaps it is adult naiveté at the actions of young teens or perhaps it is a cultural difference between Americans and Britons but Emma’s, Chloe’s and Lola’s actions and freedoms appear as extremely improbable and make it so difficult for readers to remember that the story is supposed to be about fourteen-year-old girls. Everything about them, from their appearances to their actions to their thoughts and discussions, has the appearance and experience of girls much older than they truly are. While this is easily explained as girls trying desperately to act older than they are, in a hurry to grow up as kids this age always are, it does little to endear them to the adult reader. Perhaps a younger audience would better appreciate the dangers they willingly embrace, but more experienced readers can only roll their eyes and groan at the truly awful decisions made. It creates a dichotomy between the reader and the characters that is difficult to overcome.

Another difficult point to overcome is the presence of the adults. In Cold Light adults are not shown in the best of lights. They are easily lumped into three categories and none of them flattering. There are the creepy, stalker types with illicit designs towards young women. There are those that are power-hungry and too eager to manipulate details to capture the spotlight and fame. Then there are the rest – the sheep that fall prey to the machinations of the latter and blindly ignore the former while easily duped by sassy teens. Of course, all three categories of adults cannot possibly understand what it means to be a teenager and are only trying to make their lives more difficult. It is a stereotypical attitude about adults and teens that does nothing to endear the narrator to a reader.

That being said, the strong emotions Cold Light inspires is a direct testament to Ms. Ashworth’s writing talent. Her word selection and turns of phrases are pivotal to establishing the bleakness of Lola’s world. One gets the impression that the uneven pacing and disagreeable characters are a studied decision and one made to evoke strong emotions within a reader. It is a conscious choice that prevents readers from remaining ambivalent about the story.

Cold Light is a tale of two novels. On the one hand, she captures the essence of the misanthropic nature of teenagers and does so with chilling accuracy and honesty. On the other hand, the pacing of the entire novel is blocky, and the unreliability of the narrator is overdone. The story takes too many twists and turns, and the reader is fooled one too many times into thinking the truth is finally being revealed. By the end, a reader will no longer care what the truth behind Chloe’s and Carl’s deaths really is. Lola quickly loses her sympathetic appeal as she tries to defend or explain her poor choices that culminated in the tragic chain of events, while Chloe, Emma, and Carl never really earn a reader’s sympathy. The lack of likable characters should never be a deterrent to enjoying a novel, but taken in combination with a jerky plot structure and too much teen angst, it proves too much for one’s complete enjoyment of the novel.

Acknowledgments: Thank you to Mary Sasso from William Morrow for my review copy!(less)

like · see review

Aug 22, 2011 Nadya rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: bookclub

For next month's book club. This is a second novel from the author Jen Ashworth. It's about the goings on of a group of teenage girls in the late nineties, in a somewhat run down Northern town where there are constant reports of a man exposing himself to young girls. It's grubby, not particularly well written, but addictive & you have to keep reading it to find out what happens. My boyfriend asked me why I couldn't put down a book I kept saying was crap, & then he likened it to watching...more

like · see review

Jan 14, 2013 Becky rated it 1 of 5 stars · review of another edition

A train wreck for sure. The best part of the book was the ending....and honestly I am not trying to be cute with that statement. I didn't like ANY of the characters. I had absolutely no connection with any of them. A death of a 14 year old girl 10 years prior is retold from the present, along with also taking place in the past. Chloe died, big deal. She wasn't a very nice girl to begin with. I pretty much figured out who did what 1/3 of the way through. All in all, a waste of time that I could h...more

like · see review

« previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 … 89 90 next »

Contemporary

7 users

Thriller > Mystery Thriller

6 users

European Literature > British Literature

5 users

Mystery > Crime

3 users

Young Adult

3 users

Death

3 users

Adult Fiction

3 users

Realistic Fiction

2 users

Thriller

2 users

See top shelves...

Readers also enjoyed similar books

The Glass Butterfly
by Louise Marley
The Hiding Place
by David J. Bell
Ten Days
by Janet Gilsdorf
Secrets
by Darcia Helle
The Start of Everything
by Emily Winslow

Books by Jenn Ashworth

More…

Share This Book

Facebook Twitter Your website

Trivia About Cold Light

11 trivia questions

More quizzes & trivia...

title link	preview: Cold Light
avg rating	preview: Cold Light Goodreads rating: 3.02 (416 ratings)
small image	preview: click here [close]
med image	preview: click here [close]
BBCode	[url=http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/9833502-cold-light?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_book][img]http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1359915799l/9833502.jpg[/img][/url] [url=http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/9833502-cold-light?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_book]Cold Light by Jenn Ashworth[/url]

Cold Light

Friend Reviews

Lists with This Book

Community Reviews

new topic
Discuss This Book

combine
Other Editions (8)

Videos About This Book

Genres

Readers also enjoyed similar books

Books by Jenn Ashworth

Share This Book

Share This Book on Your Website

Trivia About Cold Light