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  • How the Light Gets In

  • A Novel
  • By: Joyce Maynard
  • Narrated by: Joyce Maynard
  • Length: 16 hrs and 38 mins
  • 4.4 out of 5 stars (56 ratings)

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How the Light Gets In

By: Joyce Maynard
Narrated by: Joyce Maynard
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Publisher's summary

From New York Times bestselling author Joyce Maynard comes the eagerly anticipated follow-up to her beloved novel Count the Ways—a complex story of three generations of a family and its remarkable, resilient, indomitable matriarch, Eleanor.

Following the death of her former husband, Cam, fifty-four-year-old Eleanor has moved back to the New Hampshire farm where they raised three children to care for their brain-injured son, Toby, now an adult. Toby’s older brother, Al, is married and living in Seattle with his wife; their sister, Ursula, lives in Vermont with her husband and two children. Although all appears stable, old resentments, anger, and bitterness simmer just beneath the surface.

How the Light Gets In follows Eleanor and her family through fifteen years (2010 to 2024) as their story plays out against a uniquely American backdrop and the events that transform their world (climate change, the January 6th insurrection, school violence) and shape their lives (later-life love, parental alienation, steadfast friendship). With her trademark sensitivity and insight, Joyce Maynard paints an indelible portrait of characters both familiar and new making their way over rough, messy, and treacherous terrain to find their way to what is, for each, a place to call “home.”

©2024 Joyce Maynard (P)2024 HarperCollins Publishers

What listeners say about How the Light Gets In

Average customer ratings
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  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    4 out of 5 stars

Many interesting characters

Though at times I felt the book became a bit repetitive the story always brought me back. There was always a turn or a twist to make me want to keep listening to see what would happen in the life of one or another of the people. The book is long but I do highly recommend it.

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  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    2 out of 5 stars
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    3 out of 5 stars

Touching but over-long and very sentimental

The author in her promotions has said that one need not read Count the Ways to enjoy How the Light Gets In. I would say, having read both novels, that she is right, but
one should read Count the Ways mainly because it is much the better of the two novels. The earlier work features a wider cross section of characters and incidents than in the later novel that is confined to the herioine's close circle of family and local acquaintance. Also the author in Count the Ways allows for much more suspense and intrigue in the plot that the later novel limits largely to the heroine's challenges after her late ex-husband's death with her grown children. Most challenging for me as a reader is the intensely emotional and sentimental authorial advocacy with which she overwhelms the novel's "sympathetic" characters, principally Toby. One character in particular, Guy, Eleanor's lover, is drawn in a more detached tone that makes him come alive so vividly by contrast with the "favored" ones. Particularly in the second half there are just too many short instances that focus on Toby and Spider and drag the novel. I know that the author has been celebrated for her narration of this novel. I am pleased for her honor but for me her telling suffers from her very highly pitched, slowly spoken, and condescending narrative that made me feel that I was hearing so much of the novel at a children's story hour.

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1 person found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

Breathtaking

I loved everything about this book: the writing, the story, the timeline including true events, the narration.

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  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
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    1 out of 5 stars
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    3 out of 5 stars

Just ok

The breathy dramatic voice was annoying but it's OK. Not her best book. Love the accurate political themes.

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

Raw discussion of real life wrapped lightly in fiction

This novel touched me on so many levels: as a parent primarily with many family intricacies; connecting with social/political events; as a music lover; and downright as a damn good story. There were a couple of times that I wanted to stop listening to this book (not because of the narration, the audio version is great) as it touched many chords going on with my life that at times I didn't want to explore but ultimately kept with the story. Bravo!

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  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    3 out of 5 stars

Liberal ranting

There was so much liberal hatred toward Republicans and conservative people. I almost had to stop the book

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1 person found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Loved this book!

Count the Ways was a fabulous read—but I don’t think you need to read it before this one. Wonderful story and the weaving in of real current events during the story was a plus. Love her books!

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Powerful as always

Maynard has this magical way of pulling you into her story and never letting you go. She captures the tiny details of life with absolute perfection! As always she reads her books with a rhythm and cadence that is intimate and engrossing.

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

Exceeded my expectations!

Loved, loved the narration by the author, Joyce Maynard! Loved the story and how it flowed so beautifully from her previous novel. Read it… you won’t be disappointed.

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

It takes a lifetime to learn to forgive

Joyce Maynard’s story “How the Light Gets In” and the one that started it all, “Count the Ways,” is a beautiful story of a family like so many. Nothing special and yet everything extraordinary. I loved it. I will deeply miss spending time with the main character, the flawed and perfectly broken Eleanor, and her oh-so-human children, everyone else too. The story of the estrangement between Eleanor and her daughter has been a healing balm for me. Just knowing there are so many others out there like me — gives me hope.

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