May 2025 FBR - KU/LC Read: The Light Pirate by Lily Brooks-Dalton

[Ashley, The Tipsy Challenger]

Welcome to the May "Kindle Unlimited/Low Cost" Buddy Read!
starts 1-May-2025, ends 31-May-2025

As we embrace the glow of Matariki, we’re thrilled to announce our Formal Buddy Read for this May, inspired by celestial wonders and the power of memory!

This month, we’ll journey through starlit myths and forgotten magic, where the past whispers across time and the cosmos guides lost souls home. From fractured identities to luminous survival, these tales intertwine destiny with the light of ancient skies.

The Light Pirate by Lily Brooks-Dalton

🌊 A girl born of storms. A world fading into the tides.
🔹 Ideal for readers of atmospheric, emotional fiction with a touch of cosmic resonance.

Set in the near future, this hopeful story of survival and resilience follows Wanda—a luminous child born out of a devastating hurricane—as she navigates a rapidly changing world.

Florida is slipping away. As devastating weather patterns and rising sea levels wreak gradual havoc on the state’s infrastructure, a powerful hurricane approaches a small town on the southeastern coast. Kirby Lowe, an electrical line worker, his pregnant wife, Frida, and their two sons, Flip and Lucas, prepare for the worst. When the boys go missing just before the hurricane hits, Kirby heads out into the high winds in search of his children. Left alone, Frida goes into premature labor and gives birth to an unusual child, Wanda, whom she names after the catastrophic storm that ushers her into a society closer to collapse than ever before.

As Florida continues to unravel, Wanda grows. Moving from childhood to adulthood, adapting not only to the changing landscape, but also to the people who stayed behind in a place abandoned by civilization, Wanda loses family, gains community, and ultimately, seeks adventure, love, and purpose in a place remade by nature.

Told in four parts—power, water, light, and time— The Light Pirate mirrors the rhythms of the elements and the sometimes quick, sometimes slow dissolution of the world as we know it. It is a meditation on the changes we would rather not see, the future we would rather not greet, and a call back to the beauty and violence of an untamable wilderness.

When using this Buddy Read to get Bonus Points for a Challenge, please check with the mod running the Challenge for any posting requirements not listed below!

🚀 2025 (Impossible) Solar System Challenge: While there's no specific post count requirement, your participation should go beyond simple statements like "I liked the book." Quality of contribution matters more than quantity, so focus on crafting well-considered responses that add value to the discussion.

[Jessica]

I only meant to put this audiobook on for 20 mins as I had something else to read tonight, but can I stop listening? Not possible. I'm on chapter 16 and the way Lily is taking her time with this intro is crazy. I know something terrible is going to happen but I don't know what or to who.

[Ashley, The Tipsy Challenger]

Oh exciting! Can't wait to start, I've been in a bit of a reading slump, so maybe this can help pull me out!

[Skye Blue ☆*~ﾟლ(´ڡ`ლ)~*☆]

I'm on chapter 48. (view spoiler)[I think Wanda's lost everyone. (hide spoiler)] I have to stop for a while. But I think the tone of the book is gonna be very different from here on.

[Skye Blue ☆*~ﾟლ(´ڡ`ლ)~*☆]

Glad there is still more with Phylis and her brother.

The world didn't have 1 event that caused a dystopia world, it slowly changed year after year. It wasn't just Floria. California and other areas were affected. I wonder how much change the inland states had.

[Jessica]

I had to wait a few days to process how I was feeling about the ending.

Initially I was disappointed, but I think that's because it didn't go the way I expected.

(view spoiler)[Firstly, I loved part 2. Kirby made me furious by making the same mistake twice, but it was clear he wasn't able to adapt. I think to him, leaving felt like a betrayal to those he lost, especially since his decision to stay lost them their lives. Though what happened to him was so sad, it felt
right.

Part 3, Wanda's decision to stay to me was the wrong decision. We are creatures that do better when we live in groups. Staying in a place with no doctors, no police officers, no shops, no farms...why would any young person put their life in that much danger?

Then part 4, to me we see Wanda made the wrong decision. The most obvious example is she says she can't afford to care about the life of the cat. Her life has become nothing more than survival, there's no quality of life. That being said, it does allow us to see the country transformed, and a bleak look at what our future may hold. I liked we got a bit of sunshine in the end with a surprising romance.

I think after part one, I was expecting to be entertained, but that wasn't what this book was trying to do. This book was sending a message and I think it did that perfectly. (hide spoiler)]

[Skye Blue ☆*~ﾟლ(´ڡ`ლ)~*☆]

I kept wanting Wanda to go with her brother to California. But it was going down hill too.
I did like her time with Phylis.

Most of the book felt like it was prepping for when things would get wild. But it didn't really. Just the world around collapsing bit by bit.

I did like that Wanda found someone. I kept expecting more.
Climate change in the extreme.

[Ashley, The Tipsy Challenger]

I'm just starting this (finally) and I've only read the very first chapter, but it felt powerful. I don't know if it was the mom vibes or what that made me feel so connected to what Frida was saying and feeling but ooooof.... that was emotional.

[Teddie]

Same Ashley - some of Frida's internal ruminations really resonated, like "Did she really choose or did she just succumb?"

I'm enjoying the writing a lot!

[Ashley, The Tipsy Challenger]

Oh. my. I finished "Power" and I am wrecked. Just wrecked.

[Ashley, The Tipsy Challenger]

And I finished "Water" last night. This book is really altering my brain chemistry. I have been talking to my husband about it and reading him little bits that made me think.

[Teddie]

I agree. I can't get it out of my mind. So much of what I've been carrying in my head the past few years is in this book.

The thing I keep coming back to is the idea of fantasies, and the stories we tell ourselves. I knew this book was going to get to me from the start, when Frida was thinking about what her life would have been if she had stayed in Texas at school, building bridges over water... We all play with those Sliding Door daydreams I suppose. Then Lucas daydreams, then Kirby, then Phyllis.

The of course, the larger fantasy that this isn't happening to our world, or if it is, its happening elsewhere, not to us, we have time.

It has been a while since I've read a book where I highlighted so many bits.

[Angie ☯]

I posted last night or thought I did! GR really hates me sometimes.

I agree with you, Ashley!. That first section - Power - was just that powerful and devastating just like tornados and other weather events can be.

[Angie ☯]

I was expecting it to go from there to Wanda growing and thriving and was a little disappointed in the way the story went - but it was be mostly because of my expectations, not the book itself.

Instead of entertaining this book in my opinion was meant to give a message and I believe the author pulled that off in a perfect fashion!

[Ashley, The Tipsy Challenger]

The Light Pirate by Lily Brooks-Dalton

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


This is a book that doesn't just linger in your mind; it rewires it. From the very first chapter, I was struck by its emotional potency. Frida's perspective, especially as a mother, gripped me with an almost visceral intensity.

Brooks-Dalton's prose doesn't shy away from brutality or beauty, weaving a story that feels both urgent and timeless. I found myself desperate to share passages of this with the people around me. This isn't just a book your read; it's one you discuss. It's ideas bout survival, adaptation, and humanity demand to be spoken, turned over, and felt. Deeply.

I savored the final chapters, torn between my hunger to know how it ended and my reluctance to leave this world behind. Every part left me heartbroken and awed in equal measure. This is a rare kind of novel, that alters your perspective, leaving you quieter, more tender, and acutely aware of the fragility of the world around you.



View all my reviews

[Jessica]

I saw a news article the other day titled 'Are we sleepwalking into a food shortage crisis?' unfortunately it was behind a pay wall so I couldn't read it, but I was listening to the radio yesterday and they were explaining that Japan is desperately importing rice because a lot of their rice crops failed recently due to high temperatures.

This isn't something you like to hear anyway, but reading the Light Pirate has put me way more on edge. I had this feeling of 'its already started. It's not if it's when.' I've been wondering how we'll need to adapt as a world and as individuals.

[Ashley, The Tipsy Challenger]

Jessica wrote: "I saw a news article the other day titled 'Are we sleepwalking into a food shortage crisis?' unfortunately it was behind a pay wall so I couldn't read it, but I was listening to the radio yesterday..."

I think this is why this book hit me so hard. Because it wasn't your typical dystopian novel, where a critical, tragic event occurs and humanity is thrust into chaos. It was decades the the making, a slow turn to dystopia. And how people (still) couldn't accept it until it was on top of them, and they were unable to ignore it any longer.

There was a quote somewhere in the book, which I don't have with me, so I can't exactly quote it, but it was something to the effect of

"We thought we would be gone before we had to deal with the consequences"... and man if that isn't the truth right now.

[Teddie]

I think what I kept coming back to while reading this is that we, as a society, are in the book's timeline already - it isn't just some nebulous future time.

one of the takeaway quotes for me from this is:
"The same with the floods, the hurricanes, the sea level. Didn't he know that all of this was coming? Didn't everyone? They've known for years. Decades. It didn't make any difference. None at all. Because now it's here and despite all that knowing, he's lost. Everyone is. They had all hung their hats on the question of proximity. Yes, it will be bad, they'd said to one another, but we have years. We have time. Somehow we'll solve this along the way."

Just haunting, especially so given some of the decisions that are being made in the world today.

[Jenny]

I just started this today, and I just finished the Power section.
This is a powerful book. No pun intended. I loved how personal interactions were interspersed with the coming apocalypse. Well, hurricane. I was rooting for Frida and wanting to slap the husband and children. Then I realized what a divorce can do to kids, and I forgave them their behavior. Mainly.

Gotta agree with Teddie here. We are not reading about some nebulous "maybe" future. We are here, and unless geo engineering happens in a big way, the Earth is about to kick a bunch of us off the planet. Violently, or through attrition. I am a big grapefruit fan, and during Covid, there was also a grapefruit shortage that was weather driven. Phoenix had 113 days in a row last year of over 100 degrees. This year is supposed to be hotter.
Now, having to run the air conditioning longer and missing some grapefruit is not the end of the world, for me. But, I am not on the brink of starvation nor am I living next to an ocean or on tornado alley. But, we are killing the planet, and there are no governments savvy enough, or unselfish enough to do anything real about it. As soon as Miami is drowned and California completely burns down, perhaps something will be done.

Sorry. I don't mean to be Debbie Downer, but seriously, the science is real. Using bamboo straws and recycling are good things, but they are not enough.

[Jenny]

And done.
That was something else.
(view spoiler)[I did like the ending, I think it gave a sense of hope after all. But, the road to get there, wow. I did care for these people, but, not as much as I wanted to I think. I'm not sure, but there was something missing for me in the character writing that I wanted to be there. I wish I could articulate it, but oh well. Clearly they were ordinary people, who had things happen to them, and they dealt with it. Maybe the fact that they were ordinary was the point.
Wanda's "gift" which is never explained, is an interesting twist to the tale, and almost sends this book into magical realism. Almost. I don't mind that it isn't explained, but I love the fact that Phyllis tries to figure it out.
(hide spoiler)]

[Benedicte, Bookmark First, Ask Later]

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