When the Lights Go Out
Book Review - When the Lights Go Out by Mary Kubica
I didn't realize this book was set in Chicago prior to starting it. So I was delighted to find that I could actually picture in my mind the exact streets Mary Kubica mentions in this book. She even set key scenes in some of my favorite spots in the city including Daley Center, the Chicago Picasso, the little park next to the Art Institute of Chicago. As Jessie, the main character in the book, navigated the streets I felt like I was walking right along with her as they were streets I've walked hundreds of times when I lived there.
My lucky streak of books continues with When the Lights Go Out by Mary Kubica. I've read a number of her books before including Pretty Baby and The Good Girl so I knew this book was going to be a fun read. At one point in the middle of the book I did think to myself, gosh, I just want to fast forward through this scene and find out what happens! I get the same thoughts in my head when I watch chase scenes in action movies....how does this chase end? I know either the bad guy gets caught or someone dies or there is a big crash...which is it? Despite a bit of a slow point in the middle, I really enjoyed this book and was surprised by the ending.
The book goes back and forth between current day, following Jessie as she deals with her mother's death from cancer; and the journal her mother Eden kept in the late 1990s. We get bits and pieces of information from each story that explains how each woman got to where she is today, and how Jessie and Eden became a mother/daughter duo, living in Chicago, without any friends or family to speak of. Eden has always kept Jessie's father a secret so as her mother faces death she goes on a quest to find out who he is...except that she hasn't been sleeping well and her insomnia makes it difficult for Jessie to distinguish what is real and what is conjured up in her mind.