A Hundred Hours of Night

Reviewed by: Carla McAllister - New Gloucester Public Library, New Gloucester, Maine, Southern Maine Library District

Review Date: January 25, 2017

Review

Emilia De Wit is 15 years old and her life is falling apart. Her father has caused an embarrassing scandal involving a schoolmate and her mother is a successful, distant, self-absorbed artist. So Emilia decides to go to New York City, a place of which she has often dreamed, leaving her hometown of Amsterdam behind. She has arranged a place to stay and thinks that she is all set, but arrives to find that the Craigslist offering was a scam and finds herself on the streets. Luckily, she is befriended by Seth and Abby, a brother and sister with family issues of their own, and a model-beautiful 17 year old named Jim who has escaped his somewhat dysfunctional family in Michigan. To top it all off, Hurricane Sandy arrives and leaves them in the dark for one hundred hours, without connectivity to the outside world, and without all the other luxuries that electricity provides. Drawing from her own experience of surviving Hurricane Sandy, Woltz brings to life the reality of that devastating event on the city and its citizens. Will it take complete darkness for Emilia and her friends to see the light of truth, the possibility of forgiveness and that life often must be lived in shades of gray? I highly recommend this surprising and unpredictable story.

Overall Book Score: very good