The Bright Years: A Novel
By the nationally bestselling author of The Burning Side
One family. Four generations. A secret son. A devastating addiction. A Texas family is met with losses and surprises of inheritance, but they’re unable to shake the pull back toward each other in this family saga perfect for readers of Mary Beth Keane and Claire Lombardo.
Ryan and Lillian Bright are deeply in love, recently married, and now parents to a baby girl, Georgette. But Lillian has a son she hasn’t told Ryan about, and Ryan has an alcohol addiction he hasn’t told Lillian about, so Georgette comes of age watching their marriage rise and fall.
When a shocking blow scatters their fragile trio, Georgette tries to distance herself from reminders of her parents. Years later, Lillian’s son comes searching for his birth family, so Georgette must return to her roots, unearth her family’s history, and decide whether she can open up to love for them—or herself—while there’s still time.
Told from three intimate points of view, The Bright Years is a tender, true-to-life debut that explores the impact of each generation in a family torn apart by tragedy but, over time, restored by the power of grace and love.
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Readers say *The Bright Years* is a deeply emotional family saga, praised for its beautiful, realistic portrayal of addiction, grief, and resilience. ...
The Bright Years is the debut novel by Sarah Damoff. The novel is told in past and present timelines and in multiple points of view, following four generations. The novel is brief, at less than 300 pages. Sarah Damoff’s writing is lovely; there are many gems of deep and profound insight about life and love scattered throughout the novel. It is a tale of loss, of regret, of finding and losing love, and of forgiveness. There are heavy topics discussed, but they didn’t quite hit me emotionally. I’m not sure the book was long enough for me to feel as if I had formed relationships with the characters or if there was a disconnect there due to the author’s writing style (which I still think is beautiful), etc. I wanted the book to be longer, I wanted to bond more with these characters, but I just couldn’t, and that’s a shame because I feel like with about 50-100 more pages of character development, I may have been spilling the tears that everyone else has been spilling over this novel! Overall, though, a great debut that I’m rating 3 out of 5 stars. I’ll be interested to read this author’s work in the future. I think she has a lot of potential. Thank you to Simon & Schuster for providing this book for review consideration via NetGalley. All opinions are my own.
The plot delivers some unexpected turns but they were grounded in reality rather than solely for shock value. I have never lived with an alcoholic but it seems the author portrayed believable, complicated relationships which the characters navigated to the best of their abilities.
My only complaint is when Damoff felt the need to put “profound” thoughts or words into her characters that didn’t always strike me as sensical or genuine such as “… we created a thousand symphonies we didn’t mean to write” and when she uses a jarring, omniscient POV in present tense to reveal past events.
Overall, though, this is an interesting story with thought-provoking themes.
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