All the Little Lights

Gr 8 Up—Elliott Youngblood and Catherine Calhoun are outsiders in the desolate town of Oak Creek, OK—Elliott, because he is Cherokee; Catherine, who is white, because her family owned a smelting plant that poisoned the town. When Elliott visited his aunt and uncle in Oak Creek the summer before his freshman year, he and Catherine developed an instantaneous connection. But on the same day that Catherine's beloved father died unexpectedly, Elliott is dragged back to his hometown. Catherine spends the next three years working at her family's bed-and-breakfast and trying to forget Elliott, until he reappears during their senior year. But things are no longer as simple as they used to be, and Catherine harbors a dark secret that threatens to tear them apart. While this romance concludes with a clever and disturbing twist, the ending is tonally incongruous with the repetitive love story that precedes it. A narrow focus on Catherine and Elliott's relationship leaves little room for character development. The author relies on tropes to flesh out some of the secondary characters readers meet, such as an African American paying guest, who periodically stays at the family's establishment and voluntarily cooks, cleans, and takes care of Catherine, while giving the young woman life lessons. Catherine's ill-defined problems take center stage, even though Elliott experiences racist abuse and domestic violence.