Book Review / This Raging Light by Estelle Laure

 How is it that you suddenly notice a person? How is it that one day Digby was my best friend's admittedly cute twin brother, and then the next he stole air, gave jitters, twisted my insides up?

Lucille has bigger problems than falling for her best friend's unavailable brother. Her mom has gone, leaving her to look after her sister, Wren. With bills mounting up and appearances to keep, Lucille is raging against her life but holding it together - just.

A stunning debut to devour in one sitting, Laure captures completely the agony and ecstasy of first love.

Published:     14th January 2016
Publisher:  Orchard Books
Goodreads :  Click here
Series or Stand-Alone:  Stand Alone
Source:  Review Copy from Publisher
Rating:  4 stars

Honestly, I wasn't too sure what to make of this when I first started reading this.  It read like a middle grade story but the description on the back of the book read like there's more than meets the eye.

What I liked about this story...  As mentioned above I was a little unsure when I started reading this book as it seemed like a middle grade read and it is not something that I would usually pick up but the description sounded amazing so I decided to carry on and I am so glad that I did.  This book has a lot more depth than I thought it would.  We follow Lucille (17 year old) whose parents have abandoned her leaving her, for various reasons, looking after her sister on her own.  Lucille is a very strong character who has had to grow up, fast.  For me, the best part of this story was following Lucille's story from the very beginning having to cope with being the adult of the house and watching her grow as a person throughout the story, facing up to various obstacles in her course.  Honestly speaking, this story for me was more about Lucille's journey rather than her experience with first love but I did enjoy that part of the story too.  

What I was not fond of with this story...  Expectation.  When reading the description on the back I had thought that this was going to be a love story and even though that is part of the story, that's just one of many parts of the story that fit together like a puzzle.  When going into this book I had thought it was about one thing but it turned out to be another.  That's not necessarily a bad thing but it did throw me for a bit when starting the book until I realised that there was more than meets the eye.