Jaclyn’s Comments (group member since Jun 07, 2016)

Jaclyn’s comments from the The Light Between Oceans Read-A-Long group.

1. I'm glad Gwen did what she did, since I think it was really good for Lucy. I can't blame Hannah for being pissed off though, I probably would've been angrier at the deception.

2. I'm surprised but glad at Isabel's choice. It was really hard to do but it was the right thing.

Also, I totally teared up at that ending. Ugh.

Agreed that I'm losing sympathy for Isabel. I can't believe she'd go so far as to suggest Tom's guilty of murder.

1. I agree more with Gwen's suggestion to ease Lucy into the transition a bit more gradually. If Hannah lets Lucy see Isabel, she can then ease Isabel out of Lucy's life gradually. As it is, Lucy misses Isabel and Tom too much to bond with Hannah.

2. No, I'm fairly confident that the truth will come out, either Isabel gets a change of heart or someone else comes forward. Poor Tom has to be acquitted!

3 - Poor Isabel! I understand Tom's desire to reassure Hannah, and I think if we'd been more enmeshed in Hannah's story from the start rather than Tom and Isabel's, I might feel differently. But as it is, I feel horrible for Isabel and Tom's loss. The scorpion scene in particular showed how much Tom loves his daughter so I can't even imagine how horrible this must be for them.

4 - it sounds (from the conversation between the policemen) as if Tom has thrown himself under the bus on this, in order to protect Isabel, which is super noble of him but probably not smart. It also sounds as if Isabel is planning to take advantage of that and take revenge on Tom by not admitting her complicity in the whole thing. Which is horrible but I can also sympathize with her desire for revenge.

1 - Bluey and his mother's betrayal was surprising and felt much worse to me than Isabel's decision to take revenge on Tom because their motives were so mercenary.

2 - I like how the policeman wonders if Isabel is as delusional as he'd originally thought Hannah was. He's a kind man and tries to understand people rather than judge. Isabel's parents felt so much like enablers though -- while I sympathize with Isabel, they seem to baby her and I feel she needs a bit of harsh reality right now.

1. Yes, I totally thought it was Tom, and suppose Isabel must be much more conflicted than she initially seems.

2. I don't think Isabel necessarily thinks of "right" differently than Tom does, but rather that she's more willing to compromise on what's morally "right" depending on the circumstances. After all, now that Lucy has gotten to know and love them as parents, how "right" is it to take away that certainty from her with the truth?

3. I used to be leaning more toward Team Isabel who, though objectively appears more in the wrong, seemed to have a more tangible need than the (then) unknown biological mother. But getting to know Hannah's story, and particularly the tragic circumstances that led to her husband and child being separated from her, makes me much more sorry for her situation, and I'm starting to think maybe Lucy should be returned to her after all. I also wonder, if Isabel has no intention at all of returning Lucy, if it hadn't been crueller to give Hannah false hope of potential reunification rather than letting her assume the baby died along with her husband.

My favourite part was Violet finding out about her sons' deaths in the war. It's only about three or four pages but so powerfully written. The last two lines are deceptively casual:

"The first Violet knew of her second son's death was the bland package in her hands. It was an easy enough mistake to have made on the battlefield, she had said."

In contrast to the more emotional scenes between Isabel and Tom over the baby, the matter of fact approach to Violet's scene felt like a wallop, it was so unexpected.

It also possibly explains a bit why Isabel values motherhood so highly, and how the loss of her children must have reminded her of her mother's losses.

I like that quote you chose where Isabel accuses Tom of not taking her seriously. Her actions are selfish (albeit understandable), but that doesn't mean she didn't think it through.

I love how the book really lets us into Isabel's emotions -- her hope and excitement over choosing baby names, and her utter pain when each pregnancy ends in death.

1. I'd say both of them are torn between two ways of thinking. Tom, more obviously, is torn between wanting to make Isabel happy and wanting to keep the integrity of the lighthouse records, but also Isabel, who I think has an idea of a perfect family, and is struggling to come to terms with the reality that she may never have that. Her desire to pass the baby from the ocean off as her own is a desperate attempt at the appearance of a "perfect" family, yet she is all too aware that it isn't quite ideal.

2. With regard to the theme of opposites, I think The Light Between Oceans does a good job in blurring the lines between them. It seems pretty clear that the moral thing to do would be to return the baby, but then again as Isabel points out, giving up the baby doesn't necessarily mean they'll be giving it a good life. Possibly, giving it up means relegating it to an orphanage and perhaps keeping it when they know they can be loving parents is the right thing to do.

3. Yes, as perhaps his experience with his mother makes him more determined to make Isabel happy.

4. Isabel strikes me as quite a bit younger than Tom, and perhaps her level of self-centredness is part of what drew Tom to her as a perfect match for his level of self-effacement. Isabel is eager to shape her own destiny, regardless of how unrealistic her desires may be, whereas Tom is a lot more willing to fade into the background and let things unfold naturally. Given this, Isabel clearly is the more natural decision maker in the couple, and it'll be interesting to see if and how this dynamic shifts depending on how the storyline of the baby turns out. e.g. if the birth mother appears, will that spark Tom into asserting himself?

I love the preface. Takes us right into the heart of the story and the romantic build-up afterward are tinged with our knowledge of their future.

I also liked the scene where Tom saves the woman on the boat. I thought at first that she would turn out to be Isabel and now I wonder if she'll return in a future scene as a character of significance somehow (the biological mother of the child maybe?)

The romance is really sweet. I love the scene with the seagulls and just how happy and full of joy she seems to be. I can imagine that plays a lot into his attraction to her, and why he would want so much to keep her happy, e.g. By keeping the child as their own.