I feel like I need to preface this by stating that I do not read contemporary fiction often. It’s not a rule or anything. I simply like magic. A lot. But every now and then I get a wild hair up my ass and think it’s time to try something new. It’s good for personal development, but also development as a writer. There is so much to learn from all types of books.

Safelight by Casey Lown is contemporary fiction, and it is not light reading. By the author’s own wording it is a dark humoured coming of age story. The story covers a multitude of traumas, repeated drug abuse, and there are at least two animal deaths.

I can attest to these descriptions. The writing is witty and there is some dark humour. It’s also a love story. It’s not a romance by any means of the definition as I understand the romance genre to have (i.e. there’s no happy ending). In fact, the ending kinda leaves you on a cliffhanger designed to entice people to write their own happy ending, or hope for a second book, but it is a love story. It’s also a second chance story.

Emily, at first, is not a likable character, and neither is Joe - Emily’s would be romantic partner. They are deeply flawed people who make shitty decisions. I struggled with this at the start, even when I found little things I liked about them. I would bring that emotion of connection under tight lock and focus on their negative attributes instead, and I was a quarter of the way through when I realised what excellent writing I was reading.

These characters were real. They were deeply flawed. They treated people horribly, even people who tried to help them at every turn. Hell, Emily and Joe treated each other horribly from time to time, too. They made what they thought were the right decisions at the time only for it to backfire, or they made really shitty in the heat of the moment decisions, and realised they fucked up.

I half wondered if my own internal biases had coloured my initial response to Emily being a shitty human. Was it internalised misogyny? I have no idea, but once I realised the story had an effect on me, I knew it had done its job. I could accept Emily for who she was. I could empathise with her, even if I didn’t agree with her actions.

By the end of the story I was rooting for a happy ending, even though I knew in my heart that probably wasn’t where the story was going. In some way, I think it made me like the story more. It made it real. It made these people I was reading about real, and that’s what I want from any book.

For me, Safelight was reminiscent of how S.E. Hinton made me feel when I first read The Outsiders or That Was Then, This is Now. It’s a good read that hits hard, while serving out a heavy dose of hope that doesn’t disappoint.