This was my last read of 2022, and whew, what a note to end on.

INTO THE LIGHT is a breathless, literary thriller detailing a teen's escape from an ultra-religious community. I would *highly* recommend reading the trigger warnings before starting this book, especially for trauma associated with foster care/homelessness/queerness/racism/assault. It's by no means a light yarn. But it's a resonant one, and Oshiro tells it beautifully.

Occasionally I felt the pace stilted and became repetitive, losing its momentum, but generally I *devoured* these pages, racing toward the central mystery. And trust me when I say: You won't see the twist coming.

This was the first book I’ve read by Mark Oshiro and you best believe I will be reading everything they write from now on. Wow. This book was amazing. It was intense, suspenseful, heartwrenching, painful, scary, and beautiful all at the same time. What makes this book really stand out to me as a great thriller is the fact that almost everything that happens in this book can (and unfortunately does) happen in real life. The reality of it all made everything feel so much more intense and scary. Conversion therapy, religious abuse, abuse by adoptive parents, homophobia, and houselessness are all topics that are discussed throughout this book very heavily which was a bit overwhelming at times. The small fantasy elements of this book were a little disappointing and I feel like the book could have done without them– they pulled me out of the story and were confusing to understand. This book is going to take the world by storm. It’s real and raw and very very painful but it is written with such grace. I loved this book!!

What a beautifully written coming of age story of both devastation and hope. I think a lot of people will be able to find a little bit of themselves in this story, and perhaps not always in a good way, yet somehow in a healthy way. The traumas experienced by children here are written in a hard hitting way, as they should be, but with a masterfully delicate hand.

This story takes us through Manny’s life as a homeless teenaged boy who has been brutally disowned by America’s foster care system in horrendous ways that are slowly revealed throughout the book. In his early years, at least he had his sister by his side while moving from one foster home to the next but eventually lost her to the religious cult he was outcast from. Now he fears for her life and wants to save her, but doesn’t have means or knowledge to do so. We’re taken on both a heartwarming and heartbreaking journey as he attempts to cling to the one thing he feels he has left as he himself learns what it means to trust and to love.

Both adoption and religion are not big things in my country and while I do have a small connection to the US via family, it’s hard for me to understand the atrocities that can happen in what the rest of the world generally considers a very well-to-do country. Such cruelty happens everywhere, but it’s still hard for me to reconcile and justify what can and does happen there. This story, while a work of fiction, helped me understand some of that.

Another thing is that sometimes I pick up YA fiction and slide into it easily; this book was definitely one of those. But there are a few where unfortunately where I can tell that I’m just not the right target demographic. I feel that this however can easily be enjoyed by ages older than beyond the young adult genre it’s listed in. The author again is delicate with words but they hit hard where they need to, and a bit softer where warranted. I feel it’s masterfully written and am interested to see where Mark Oshiro will take us in future stories. An easy 5 star novel from me.

A huge thanks to NetGalley and Tor for giving me this ARC in exchange for an unbiased review!

INTO THE LIGHT by Mark Oshiro proved to be quite gripping; I read the book very quickly. One thing Oshiro does so well is that he shows the impacts of Manny's experiences without traumatizing the reader. It's very clear Manny's experienced hardships in his year of homelessness and, of course, his time prior to that. The Valeras are also well-written adult characters who own their mistakes and try to make amends for hard they caused. The way they treat Manny is almost shocking in that they truly care about him and forgive a mistake he makes without punishing him for it. The actions of the Valeras turn Manny's life around right then, even though he doesn't realize it in the moment.

It's difficult to talk about INTO THE LIGHT without spoilers. Overall, many of the relationships in the story, including that between siblings Manny and Elena, are well written and compelling. Oshiro offers a range of adult characters, which provides needed dimension in a story that could lean into one-note villains. This is definitely a book I'll recommend to students who want to write about religion through a teen narrator.

Thank you NetGalley and Tor Teen for the ARC! The book follows Manny whose story unfolds through a series of flashbacks and current events narrative. Manny has fled a religious group/cult (who also perform conversion "therapy"). Lucky he has been taken in by a family with an interesting backstory of their own. Manny worries for the sister he left behind when a body is discovered on the property of the group and he sets off to find her. There is an unexpected twist in the back half of the book that could detract some readers, but adds another layer to this impactful story.

An Incredible and horrifying queer story against themes like conversion therapy, unfair social security, white supremacists giving toxic behavior to religion communities, being constantly in homeless situation. Every chapter between Manny and Eli got some heavy, darker and painful thoughts around the plot plus poetic language mixing any idea of being oppressed even if you're life is being be portraying by anti queer people in places like that. I really appreciate and I was impacted by author's words. If you need a queer horror story setting in a real world, this book is how the white supremacist still working against queer people of color.

Into the Light is a YA suspense/thriller that tackles the US fostering system, religious ideology, family, and finding your true place in a world full of prejudice, discrimination, and injustice.

I always love a culty premise, so I didn't hesitate to ask for an ARC when I found this on NetGalley. I found Manny's homelessness and defenselessness compelling and heart-wrenching. His mistrust of anyone willing to help him was sad but realistic, when you take into account the poor foster care system in the US.

Despite liking the premise and enjoying Manny's character, the pacing of the novel was all over the place. The first 75% was too slow; there was a great deal of repetition, and it felt like not much happened until the big reveal. From then on, it was a sprint to the finish. The book would have been more gripping if it had been shorter and Manny didn't spend so much time getting to Idyllwild.

The following contains some minor spoilers.
I didn't appreciate the unexpected reveal. Having a supernatural twist made the rest of the novel seem bland in comparison. If there was an otherworldly presence at the camp, why hadn't it ever been tapped before? Why not use that to bolster the cult's following and create an atmosphere outside of what can already be stripped from the headlines? I feel that, with the twist, the book lost a lot of weight.
End of spoilers.

Despite the pacing and twist issues, I enjoyed this book and would recommend it to anyone who likes reading about religious camps, cults, and found family.

This wasn’t what I was expecting, and it was really fascinating. It’s not what I normally read, and I didn’t enjoy it all that much that other people may, but I think that it’s still a good book that’s written in an amazing way.

I really enjoyed reading this, it was captivating from the start of the novel. I think that the characters were well crafted and I identified with them strongly, overall I think that the twist came a touch too out of left field, I enjoyed it. But it also felt like it was there mainly for the sake of being the twist rather than a twist that is being lead up to. Overall a well crafted story with strong themes and characters.

Woah! My first Oshiro read and I was utterly engrossed!

Into the Light by Mark Oshiro is a thought provoking YA mystery read!
While also delivering a story of self discovery.
The writing style is stunning as Oshiro leads us through a story I will soon not forget.
And the story it was utterly gripping and written in a wonderfully compelling way.
The character development was done extremely well throughout. Like freaking amazing.
Manny and Eli are both wonderful characters. But Manny he tugged at the heart.
I can't get this book enough justice.... Just pick it up and open it. You won't be sorry!

"I received a complimentary copy of this book. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own."

Thank you to NetGalley and Tor Teen for my ARC in exchange for my honest review.

I really wanted to like this book: I heard it book-talked as part of its prepub promotion and it sounded intriguing. Unfortunately, there are three things that really held this book back for me. First of all, the main character's internal monologue is very repetitive. Maybe as an adult reader I just don't have patience for the teen thought process, but I do read and enjoy a fair amount of YA so I don't think it's just that. Secondly, there are three different storylines that swap throughout the book and they are not well differentiated enough to avoid some clunky confusion. And finally, there is a major plot point that is revealed more than halfway through the book to have a fantasy element. Now I love magical realism and odd twists, but in this story I just didn't feel it worked. It felt out of place and had the unfortunate effect of making the rest of the plot seem less real, when in fact it deals with important and true topics like racism, religious extremism, and child abuse.

Mark Oshiro's upcoming book is an addicting read that combines found family with sobering truths about several institutions in the country. The mix of emotion and the narrative style is beautifully done and the plot engaged me so I couldn't put it down. It definitely earned its four star rating and I will recommend it to others.

This review will be largely spoiler free. I will separate criticisms and praises with spoilers and mark them for clarity.

Summary:

Into the Light follows Manny, an orphan who grew up in foster care and is currently homeless. He spends his time traveling around the West Coast with truckers and others willing to give him a ride rather than stay in one place. He meets the Varelas family this way, who are traveling around California trying to locate friends.

Manny's only biological family member is his older sister, Elena, who is currently living with a religious cult. After learning a body has been found near the compound, Manny gives up his aimless wandering and learns to accept help and companionship from the Varelas as he tries to determine if the deceased is Elena.

While Manny is the main character, the book is interspersed with chapters from Eli, who lives with Elena and the other cult members. His chapters provide insights into the life and people Manny had to leave behind. However, Eli remembers nothing of his life before his induction into this cult, making its philosophies and missions his entire personality and purpose. He has to learn to question authority figures and processes to discover his identity and whether he really believes what his family is preaching.

What I liked:

- Manny's character development: Manny develops so well throughout the books. His actions are determined by others around him. He is stuck in foster care because the system makes it impossible for older children to get adopted. He travels where he does based on opportunity and others available. Even after the Varelas let him take control of their movements, he largely lets them take the lead and suggest courses of action. In the end, he is able to finally start healing and get the closure he needs by taking charge and leading. His actions close the book, rather than someone elses, as opposed to the start where he determines every action (his location, his conversation, his showering time) on what he thinks the Varelas need.

- The Varelas as foils to Manny's other families: A main theme of this book is choice and family. After spending so many years in foster care with several different guardians and parents, Elena and Manny see what it is like to be unloved and unwanted. Both believe there is something wrong with them that makes people unable to choose them. The Varelas are integral to Manny's development and growth. They help Manny learn his value by choosing him over and over. Even though he might treat them poorly at first or offer them nothing, they show they love him for everything that he is and will choose him regardless.

- Religious abuse and white saviorism: It would've been really easy to let the foster care system the villain in this story. In a way, it is. There are lots of discussions of the failings of the foster care system, foster parents, and social workers, but Manny's life was upended by the religious cult. Lots of religious organizations prey on young, vulnerable children like children of color, LGBTQ+ kids, and those in foster care. No one will care if they get hurt or disappear. The fact that all the religious leaders and adults were straight and white compared to the groups of queer children of color made the scenes at Reconciliation much more jarring and creepy, highlighting the clear power dynamic in the organization. While many books discuss religious trauma and power in churches, this book discusses the white savior figure. These white religious don't really care about whether they are helping the children they work with - they just want to keep up appearances and make it look like they are fixing something. It added more depth to the book's conflict and villains that set this novel apart from others with similar themes.

- The balance between Manny and Eli's chapters: While the book's description makes it seem like Manny and Eli are equal narrators, Eli's chapters are more spaced out than Manny's. This allowed Eli's insights to align with Manny revealing information about the cult and Reconciliation. It kept me intrigued in figuring out Eli's identity and learning more about Reconciliation.

- The content warnings: This is such a small detail, but I am always thankful when authors include content/trigger warnings for their books. It helps readers judge if this book is right for them or if they are in the right headspace to read it at the moment. My copy put the trigger warnings in the back matter, allowing me to read them if I wanted and avoid them if I was worried about spoilers. I did read them before reading, and it only helped prepare me for what was to come.

What I didn't like:

- The book's pacing: While I was interested throughout the entire book, I felt Manny's progression moved very slowly. It took a really long time for the team to make progress toward finally Elena/the body's identity, and then everything moved really quickly after that. I would've liked the beginning to move a little faster and give more time to the ending plotlines. However, I do think all the information we learn about Manny in those earlier segments were important for understanding his past and personality.

***Spoilers***

- Eli's reveal/Manny's Reconciliation: I was not expecting the reveal of the body, Manny's Reconciliation, and Eli's personality. For me, I would've liked more foreshadowing for this magical/non-realistic aspect of the book, especially since its such an important movement. I definitely had moments where I thought Eli was Manny, but I figured he had accepted Reconciliation and then rejected it later. I think it would've been cool for Manny to have some physical evidence of the events, like a scar, or dreams where he's seeing through Eli's eyes or something. The most foreshadowing I picked up on was Manny's repetition of Elena choosing "him". Early information lets readers think he's talking about Deacon and the meaning changes after the reveal. The transition just felt a bit jarring for me, though I do like the symbolism as Eli being the form of Manny everyone wanted him to be.

- The resolution/Elena: I liked the ending of Manny setting the compound on fire and getting a fresh start by being legally dead, but I wanted a bit more resolution. Sure, the cult doesn't have access to the buildings anymore, but Rakeem's moms even mention that the Deacon grew his power. He has good lawyers and a solid online presence. He can rebuild someone more remote. I would've liked some element of Manny's public death to include information about the Deacon and Reconciliation's true nature. Further, I wanted more on Elena. It was clear she was unwell and second-guessing her trust in the group and Deacon, but we never get to see her leave. I was a little unsatisfied. I think it would've been powerful to have some chapters from her perspective too. Maybe give some background on how she discovered the Deacon and how she accepted Reconciliation, then see her step away from it all and start working on making herself the person she needed to be for her brother.

***End of spoilers***

Thank you to Tor/Forge for granting me this ARC through NetGalley. I am honored and so excited that this amazing book got to be my first one I could review.

Into the Light is equal parts eerie, heartwarming, and heartwrenching. Oshiro has a gift for writing characters who are achingly relatable, even in circumstances that are bizarre and frustrating and at times supernatural. Into the Light unflinchingly explores coming-of-age, identity, belonging, and love, all through a beautifully written queer Latinx lens. This is a middle grade novel that I think will also appeal to adult readers who are intrigued by the premise.

Thank you to Tor Teen and NetGalley for providing a digital copy of Into the Light in exchange for an honest review! Into the Light will hit shelves March 28, 2023.

Many thanks to both Tor Teen and NetGalley for the opportunity to read and review an early copy of Into the Light.

It’s been one year since Manny and his sister, Elena, were adopted. Only a month later, Manny was cast out of the family and driven into a wilderness area of Idyllwild. There, he was forced to live in a secluded community called Reconciliation.

I was enthralled, whether reading about Manny and his travels with the Varela family, or when the book flipped back in time and told more about Reconciliation. I'm not going to lie. It was very, very painful reading about Reconciliation (especially since my grandchildren are adopted) In my opinion, conversion therapy does nothing but leave shame, pain and self-hatred in its wake.

As I said, I was enthralled ... for the first 80% of Into the Light. A solid five stars! Then the book had a "startling twist" and lost me. In my opinion, it rather diminished the impact of the book's first part. However! I wouldn't be surprised at all if the twist was the favorite part of the book for many readers.

Thanks to Netgalley and Tor books for the e-ARC in exchange for an honest review!

This is probably closer to a 3.5, but I found this a really fascinating book? It's another time where I'm having a hard time articulating my thoughts on something because I'm still in the process of turning it over in my head and trying to see how it made me feel.

I think the main thing I have to say is how much I enjoyed the writing style and structure -- the non-linear format and slow unfolding of the story was so well handled, and while I'm not normally big on first person, Oshiro really managed to give Manny a strong voice, and the short bursts of writing captured a really effective stream on consciousness style.

Other bits for characterization and worldbuilding felt weaker, but generally, this was a really compelling read that I zoomed through so quickly.

i finished this when i first got it and forgot to rate it oops. i liked it? i did, i did, but idk how i feel about the twist so I'm rating up and just assuming that I'll reread it later and actually decide how i feel lmao

Oh my goodness, what a difficult work of YA fiction to read. I can only imagine the difficulty would be felt by anyone either connected to the church, or who has experienced this kind of thing either directly or through extension.

We don't know a lot about Manny when we first meet him. We know that he's homeless, that he's got this set of 'rules' that's been offered to him by another homeless kid, and that he's been travelling for a little while with the Varela family. Apart from a single comment about him having a crush on both the father and the teenage boy around his age, there isn't any indication in the first three quarters of the novel that this will have any romantic element to it.

And that's largely because for all of that time, and also some time afterwards, Manny is still thinking of doing a runner and finding his sister on his own.

Through a series of backstory chapters, we find out that Manny and his sister Elena were in foster care for a lot of their years growing up. And then, right at the end, Elena found a married couple who were willing to adopt her and Manny. And she also found religion. Not a great one. Far from it. But she was hooked, line and sinker.

Manny was definitely less so. And is definitely less so in the present when he works himself up to confronting them and getting his sister back.

Towards the end, there's a supernatural twist that no one could have seen coming because there's really no indication that there is any supernatural elements in the world of this book. That kinda made it difficult for me to suspend my disbelief, despite the fact that the words 'religious' and 'miracle' were tossed around.

I loved this book. I read it in 2 sittings within 24 hours because I couldn’t put it down. As a queer, trans POC, this book made me feel seen, enraged, sad and hopeful.

The story follows Manny, a queer teenage Latinx foster kid, as he struggles to survive on the open road after being kicked out of a mysterious religious cult. As Manny meets some kind people, we slowly discover what happened to him, and the big secret that the cult is hiding.

This is a tough journey to follow, but Manny is an amazing, strong character and I found myself connecting to him deeply. The writing is very immediate as it’s written from Manny’s point of view. We feel all his reactions, fears and hopes as he works through his trauma. There is a big surprising reveal near the end that threw me a little as it changed the tone dramatically, but the narrative choice makes sense in the end.

Highly recommend this book. It’s a short read, but an important, impactful one.

Ever since reading Anger is a Gift, I have admired Mark Oshiro for his writing style. He writes dark and horrible events in a way that makes it feel even worse than it already is. He excels at writing haunting stories that make one feel uncomfortable yet effective in every way possible. He isn't afraid to shy away from how vile the world is.

Many of these elements are present in Into the Light, and it is paired with an element of mystery that keeps the reader guessing. And oh, does it keep you guessing. There are so many instances were I thought that answers were finally going to be given, only for the perspective to change the next page and leave me waiting once again. But the story works well, in that sense. It slowly builds up the characters and plot as more details are revealed, both ones that craft these characters into complex people, and plot elements that continue to haunt the reader.

However, it is when the hinted at twist comes in that the story starts to wavier for me. The twist seemingly comes from out of no where, with no build up or hints leading up to it. And it is disappointing, quite honestly. It feels like a cop out; like Oshiro couldn't possibly come up with another explanation for everything that has happened up to that point. But I feel like Oshiro is more than capable of doing so, and it leaves me questioning this twist. Perhaps it is a metaphor that I haven't caught onto yet, or something else of that nature. But no matter the reasoning, it was a decision that is controversial, and I can't say that I am a fan of it.

Regardless, the good elements of this book are still there, so it is hard for me to not recommend it based solely on that. Casting the questionable plot twist aside, this is still Oshiro's dark but potent writing, and it will leave your heart racing at every turn of page.

Mark Oshiro has the most emotive way with words, which is superbly apparent in his newest release. The mystery/thriller style to this book was so appealing and also kept me hooked throughout.