The Bright Years by Sarah Damoff

 

Summary (from the publisher): One family. Four generations. A secret son. A devastating addiction. A Texas family is met with losses and surprises of inheritance, but they’re unable to shake the pull back toward each other in this big-hearted family saga perfect for readers of Mary Beth Keane and Claire Lombardo.

Ryan and Lillian Bright are deeply in love, recently married, and now parents to a baby girl, Georgette. But Lillian has a son she hasn’t told Ryan about, and Ryan has an alcohol addiction he hasn’t told Lillian about, so Georgette comes of age watching their marriage rise and fall.

When a shocking blow scatters their fragile trio, Georgette tries to distance herself from reminders of her parents. Years later, Lillian’s son comes searching for his birth family, so Georgette must return to her roots, unearth her family’s history, and decide whether she can open up to love for them—or herself—while there’s still time.

Told from three intimate points of view, The Bright Years is a tender, true-to-life novel that explores the impact of each generation in a family torn apart by tragedy but, over time, restored by the power of grace and love.

Review: I need you to know that I did tear up listening to this one.

This was such a moving family saga that follows Ryan and Lillian Bright and their daughter Georgette. This is about grief and loss and regret. This is a layered and complicated story that covers several generations. It's about hidden family secrets, death, addiction, and mourning what might have been. 

I am a sucker for family sagas, so I was here for this. I really loved how we get to hear from the perspective of multiple family members in the different sections of the book. I think because we get to dwell with the characters is one reason their loss hits so hard when we see it from the lens of their family members' later on. 

This also had SUCH a beautiful love story. I would certainly never characterize this as a romance, but I loved how this love story was embedded in the family's story and how well done it was and how Georgette must overcome her fear of loss to embrace her feelings. 

I do have to say, for anyone who is scared off by the prospect of emotional damage, this is not all tragic!! There is such goodness and beauty in this and I think the ending felt both sad and hopeful. Also, the final death in the book isn't the one I thought it might be honestly, which would have been yet worse ha. 

I listened to the audiobook, and it was wonderful. Each perspective had its own narrator, and it was very well done. 

There are a lot of potential triggers in this so fair warning: miscarriage, death of a parent, alcoholism, adoption, and domestic abuse. 

Stars: 4.5