About the Book
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Author:
- Moira Buffini
Cover Story: Shine On
BFF Charms: Survivor x 3, Caution, Hell No
Talky Talk: Luminous
Bonus Factors: Seaside Town, Moral Ambiguity, Flight
Anti-Bonus Factor: Lobotomies
Relationship Status: Taking Wing
Cover Story: Shine On
The bright silhouette of Elsa in her fishing boat looks just the way her friends would see her when they connect via songlight. The fractured city represents their broken world, and the birds represent the freedom they’re fighting for.
The Deal:
In a post-apocalyptic future, some people exist with telepathic and empathic powers that allow them to speak over distances and sense each other’s thoughts and emotions. They call themselves “Torches” or “People of Song”. The government calls them “unhumans” and does its worst to wipe them out. Elsa Crane and Rye Tern, secret Torches and lovers, are preparing to run away together, but when Rye is betrayed and captured, Elsa lets out such a flood of grief that it captures the attention of two Torches miles away in the capital city: Kaira Kasey, a frail and lonely girl with a powerful songlight gift, and Sister Swan, a politician with an agenda of her own. Meanwhile, the war between their nation of Brightland and the Aylish across the sea is escalating, due to the breaking of an age-old taboo against fossil fuels. Will empathy prove useless in such a cruel world … or is it, in fact, the one thing that world needs most?
BFF Charms: Survivor x 3, Caution, Hell No
Elsa, Rye and Kaira are all incredibly strong in impossible circumstances: hiding their powers, staying connected despite the risks (the government uses “Sirens”, enslaved Torches, to telepathically search for others), living with and even caring for people who would hate them if they knew what they could do.
Elsa’s brother Piper suffers from his attraction to other men (especially his best friend Rye) in a society that’s just as unforgiving to LGBTQ+ people as it is to telepaths. Instead of feeling solidarity for Torches, though, he struggles all the more desperately to fit in with his fellow air force cadets and persecute “unhumans” as he’s been taught a good citizen should.
Sister Swan, propaganda spokeswoman of the ruling council, is living proof of how dangerous empathic powers can be in the wrong hands. She might have a horrifying history of being used by men, but she has no idea how similar to those men she’s become.
Swoonworthy Scale: 6
Forbidden love is always swoonworthy, especially when you can sense each other’s wants and needs as if they were your own. I did have to take a few points off, though, for Brightland’s entire institution of marriage. In this war-torn, post-apocalyptic future, they believe their first duty is to “repopulate the earth” by “gifting” young women to soldiers – never mind what those young women have to say.
Talky Talk: Luminous
The harsh subject matter is offset by Buffini’s beautiful writing style. I’ve read more stories featuring telepathic powers than I can count, but few of them describe a meeting of minds and hearts as vividly as the “songlight” these characters share.
Bonus Factor: Seaside Town
Having been born and raised near water all my life, I always enjoy stories set in coastal towns like Northhaven, Elsa’s and Rye’s home. Looking out over the open ocean every day can either make you retreat behind walls like Piper, or make your imagination soar like Elsa’s. And if she sometimes takes her life as a fisherwoman for granted, all it takes is seeing it through the eyes of her friend Kaira, who lives in a stuffy city apartment, to remind her how much she loves the sea.
Bonus Factor: Moral Ambiguity
While some dystopian stories draw clear lines between victim, villain and hero, Songlight is more realistic than that. Corrupt governments don’t become corrupt out of nowhere. The oppression of Torches is the backlash from an era when they used their powers to rule; this generation’s dictator was the previous generation’s freedom fighter. Not everyone who obeys him is evil, but ordinary people – teachers, classmates, neighbors, even Elsa herself – are still complicit in an unjust system, such as the forced marriages, public “Shamings” of Torches, and propaganda to justify the war against Ayland. Even Sister Swan became the manipulator she is because it was the only way she knew to survive. Everyone has a reason for their behavior, however misguided.
Bonus Factor: Flight
After a societal breakdown known as the Age of Woe, Brightland is rediscovering air travel, along with other technologies such as radio. Piper is a newly trained air force pilot and he loves it; little does he know Elsa and her friends use their songlight to fly over the sea together without ever leaving the ground. Flight in this story is a metaphor for both fear and freedom; no wonder so many characters are named after birds.
Anti-Bonus Factor: Lobotomies
When a Torch gets caught, they are forced to undergo surgery that not only removes their powers, but also their free will. These people, known as “Chrysalids”, are mindlessly obedient workers. Sister Swan has a group of them serving her, and she takes her anger out on them whenever she’s upset. It’s as nightmarish as it sounds.
Relationship Status: Taking Wing
I found this story as terrifying – and exhilarating – as one of Elsa and Kaira’s songlight flights. The sequel can’t come soon enough.
Literary Matchmaking
Caitlin Lochner’s A Soldier and a Liar is also about a minority of super-powered people fighting to survive.
Lauren Oliver’s Delirium is also about forbidden love in a dictatorship.
David Levithan’s Two Boys Kissing is the kind of book Piper deserves to read (although Brightland would certainly ban it).
FTC Full Disclosure: I received no compensation for this review.
