THE LIGHT PIRATE by Lily Brooks-Dalton – Review

I received this book for free from the Publisher in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

The Light Pirate by Lily Brooks-Dalton
Published by Grand Central Publishing on December 6 2022
Genres: Adult, Coming of age, Dystopian
Pages: 336
Format: ARC
Source: Publisher
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The nitty-gritty: A lyrical, emotional and thought provoking tale, The Light Pirate gives readers a glimpse into an apocalyptic future full of danger, heartache and hope.

The inhabitants of Rudder are slowly catching on that the time to cut their losses has arrived. But Wanda doesn’t think of it in these terms. She has been watching the town empty, the water rise, the storms pummel, as far back as she can remember. This is the rhythm she was born to.

Sometimes a book hits you just the right way, and that’s what happened to me with The Light Pirate. The story follows a girl named Wanda from birth to death, and in the process shows the slow decline of the world due to climate change. This is a story both epic and intimate, violent and heartwarming. Brooks-Dalton’s vision of the future is terrifyingly plausible, and her characters are beautifully drawn and developed. I felt as if I were in the story, experiencing the storms and floods right alongside Wanda and Kirby and Lucas.

Kirby and his pregnant wife Frida live in Rudder, Florida with Kirby’s two boys Flip and Lucas. Kirby is a lineman and works long hours repairing downed electrical lines during hurricane season and is used to the violent weather patterns and power outages. Frida, on the other hand, is terrified of storms, having recently lost her mother to a hurricane in San Juan. When the story opens, Hurricane Wanda is about to make landfall, although Kirby is convinced it will pass by their small town, and so he brushes aside Frida’s fears. But when the storm changes course and heads straight for Rudder, a series of events will change their lives forever. Left alone after Kirby is called to work and the boys decide to leave the house by themselves, Frida goes into labor and delivers a baby girl, who she christens Wanda after the hurricane.

Year after year, the storms get worse and residents decide to leave the dying town one by one. Wanda has never known anything but the ever changing landscape of Florida, the rising oceans and the spotty electrical grids, and she can’t imagine living anywhere else. As Rudder becomes an apocalyptic wasteland, Wanda grows up and learns to survive, despite the town’s crumbling infrastructure.

The story is divided into four sections which follow a different time in Wanda’s life: “Power,” the events leading up to her birth; “Water,” ten years later; “Light,” twenty years after that; and “Time,” many years later when Wanda is an old woman. For such a short book, I thought the author did an amazing job with the vast scope of the story. Not only does the reader get to experience life before the decline of Florida, but as Wanda grows up, we see the changes right along with her. And Brooks-Dalton doesn’t shy away from the harsh realities of global warming. Late in the story, she imagines a Florida where being outside in the daytime can kill you, the temperatures are so high, so Wanda learns to do everything at night and sleep during the day in order to survive. The idea is chillingly believable. The weather is almost a character itself, a fierce adversary just as dangerous as the looters and school bullies that Wanda ends up having to face.

Wanda is the star of the story, but she isn’t the only character I loved. Each one, in fact, is fully developed, even those with smaller roles. Several of the characters surprised me as well. In the beginning, I really didn’t like Kirby or his twelve-year-old son Lucas, who is cruel to his stepmother Frida. But after an unexpected tragedy, both characters changed in profound ways, and I ended up sympathizing with them, at least. 

By far my favorite character in the story is an older woman named Phyllis who lives down the street from Kirby and his family. When Wanda is ten, Kirby insists that she stay with Phyllis after school—despite her pleas that she doesn’t need a babysitter—and a lifelong friendship is born. Phyllis is a prepper who knows the apocalypse is coming, and she takes Wanda under her wing and teaches her everything she’ll need to know to survive. Wanda’s natural curiosity about the world makes her the perfect student, and the bond that grows between the two women is one of my favorite relationships in recent memory.

Lily Brooks-Dalton’s writing has a dreamy quality to it, lulling the reader into thinking everything will be OK. But these slower sections are punctuated by unexpected violence and bursts of action, reminding the reader that Wanda’s life is a harsh one. If you are a fan of Emily St. John Mandel, you will probably love this book as well, as the writing styles are similar. The story is filled with beautiful imagery and emotional moments, including memorable scenes like Frida giving birth to Wanda in the middle of a hurricane. After loving this book so much, I’m eager to go back and read the author’s last book, Good Morning, Midnight.

I do want to mention that there is a speculative element to the story that is never really explained, although the author hints at reasons for including it. Wanda turns out to have an affinity with a strange water organism that seems to be attracted to her, for some reason. Every time she brushes her hand across the water, the organisms burst into a glowing phosphorescent light. This added a magical touch to the story, and I believe it was added to show that the natural world will continue to grow and change, no matter what humans do to it.

The Light Pirate is about the loss of the world we know—imagine how you might feel the moment cell phone service dies for good, or years in the future when certain parts of the country (like Florida) are now under water—but it’s also a poignant reminder that joy can still be found, no matter how dire the circumstances. This is a wonderful story, full of unforgettable moments, that I won’t soon forget.

Big thanks to the publisher for providing a review copy.