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A review by gwalt118
Light a Penny Candle by Maeve Binchy
4.0
When I discovered - and loved - Rosamunde Pilcher last year, multiple people told me to read Maeve Binchy. I finally did it, and I have to say that you all were right. Binchy gives me serious Pilcher vibes, and I can't get enough of those.
I started with Light a Penny Candle because it is Binchy's first novel - there are SO many! - and I loved it. Aisling and Elizabeth, the two young female protagonists thrown together in the midst of war, will stay with me for a long time. This is a coming-of-age story about them as they become friends and confidants throughout the early part of their lives, encountering death, marriage, grief, and other trials and glories of life together.
The novel is about so much: mothers and daughters, female friendship, religion and faith, sex and sexuality, marriage, disease, divorce, death and grief, alcoholism, war, collective and individual independence, and probably much more that I'm forgetting. It is full of themes and characters that are well-developed and have stood the test of time.
The ending felt a bit odd to me, like maybe Binchy wasn't quite sure how to end the novel. If you've read it, I'd love to chat about it with you.
Binchy's writing is wonderful. There are letters interspersed throughout the novel, but they aren't distracting - a nod to her craft and structure. She writes dialogue very well. I disappeared into this novel for hours at a time. I am excited to read more of her work and absolutely thrilled that she wrote so much for me to read!
If you like Rosamunde Pilcher (especially the novel Coming Home) or Call the Midwife, I think you'd really enjoy this book.
I started with Light a Penny Candle because it is Binchy's first novel - there are SO many! - and I loved it. Aisling and Elizabeth, the two young female protagonists thrown together in the midst of war, will stay with me for a long time. This is a coming-of-age story about them as they become friends and confidants throughout the early part of their lives, encountering death, marriage, grief, and other trials and glories of life together.
The novel is about so much: mothers and daughters, female friendship, religion and faith, sex and sexuality, marriage, disease, divorce, death and grief, alcoholism, war, collective and individual independence, and probably much more that I'm forgetting. It is full of themes and characters that are well-developed and have stood the test of time.
The ending felt a bit odd to me, like maybe Binchy wasn't quite sure how to end the novel. If you've read it, I'd love to chat about it with you.
Binchy's writing is wonderful. There are letters interspersed throughout the novel, but they aren't distracting - a nod to her craft and structure. She writes dialogue very well. I disappeared into this novel for hours at a time. I am excited to read more of her work and absolutely thrilled that she wrote so much for me to read!
If you like Rosamunde Pilcher (especially the novel Coming Home) or Call the Midwife, I think you'd really enjoy this book.