Originally posted on Tales to Tide You Over

This book is a hard one to classify. It has many clear elements: the pressures of high school, a love of wrestling, young relationships, and the outlook of a young black man in a racially charged school environment. It sounds like a traditional young adult novel with some compelling aspects. However, that doesn’t touch on the surrealism of mystic or drug-addled wanderings along the lines of Alice in Wonderland. These are not a result of consuming illicit substances but rather because Robert Goldner has a role to play in the biblical apocalypse, something he is unaware of and which he discovers based on unreliable sources.

I learned that Harambee K. Grey-Sun is a poet when I reached the author bio in the end. That didn’t surprise me because the book is beautifully written. The descriptions are strong, and the glimpses into the different natures of being and how things come together socially are a real strength. The surrealism is shown through the mind’s eye of a rational thinker and analyzer, which adds a rather realistic feel even when the events are far from our reality. There are stories layered upon stories, each with their own meaning and twist on Robert’s tale.

Did I enjoy the ride? Yes. Am I confident in my ability to summarize the story? I’d have to say no.

There is too much going on and deliberately going sideways to confine into a reasonable length of synopsis with any hope for coherency. The book ends not with a closing door but rather a drift to the side that might offer an answer or might just be a distraction from the deeper meaning.

This is a work of philosophy and psychology wrapped around a traditional high school experience set in the near—and darkly plausible—future United States. It can lead you down a rabbit hole if you try to confine it to a traditional narrative, but that’s not to say it has no structure of its own. BloodLight is a wild and crazy ride if you relax a bit.

Some might say it wraps up nicely in a way many hate. I’d say that response is deliberately blind, much like how Robert’s father pretends not to know his son is in an interracial relationship, one of the race conflicts in the book. Personally, I think it’s worth the read if for no other reason than for the idea puzzles it tosses out there to ponder.

This is definitely a book to make you think, and it’s written with enough skill that you come out of it with several strong stories blended together when in another’s hands it could have been a chaotic mess. BloodLight is wacky, but not in a funny way. It sucked me in until I was right with Robert as he navigated his life and deviations from same.

P.S. I received this title from the publisher through NetGalley in return for an honest review. ( )

I found this title to be better suited for those who enjoy the trials and tribulations of a Southern H.S. group- the cliques, the racism, the jocks and metal-heads. Bloodlight bored me to death with the blow by blow description of the high school wrestling team. It took much too long to get to the meat of the matter for my taste. While the last few chapters were engaging, the trudging through the uninteresting first 80% left me wanting. ( )

This book is a scam. It is advertised as a novel but it isn't. I am not sure what you could call it, but it is not a novel.

Robert Goldner is a high school wrestler approaching his 17th birthday. The description of high school life and high school wrestling is very well written. Robert is surrounded by nice sane people who want him to do well. Robert has some stresses in his life, like any teenager. He is hiding his interracial relationship with his girlfriend Leigh and he wonders about his sexual orientation because his best friend is gay. Normal stuff for a teen.

But the book is not set in our world. September 11 was the day the First Lady assassinated the President. Heartland Security runs much of the country under a kind of martial law. Again, all good stuff.

So we wade into the book. We notice than no one in the book other than Robert is presented as a character. They are foils for Robert's self-examination. Robert starts hallucinating. Is it his new acne medicine? Is it a plot by Heartland Security? He blows important wrestling matches because he loses control of himself and becomes too aggressive. His body starts changing colors and is covered with dancing lights that dazzle his eyes. The effects are getting worse and worse. Then we open the next segment of the book and we have jumped back in time a few days and nothing has happened yet. Then Robert has an epileptic fit. Then his girlfriend vanishes. He goes to church with his dad. He is attacked by a demon.

This nonsense continues with lots of colorful detail but without plot progress and suddenly you realize you are at the 86% mark. Lots has happened but nothing has happened.

You continue into the next section of the book and Robert falls down a rabbit hole into a new dimension where he meets a magical animal who lectures him on the ways the Bible and religion has the story all wrong and that new things will happen soon. The end.

I received a review copy of BloodLight: The Apocalypse of Robert Goldner by Harambee K. Grey-Sun (HyperVerse Books) through NetGalley.com. ( )