"We are Light" by Gerda Blees is written in a truly unique way, from the perspectives of the night, a scent of an orange, the body of the deceased and so forth. From this we observe the Sound and Love commune/cult and their belief that you can reach a higher plain when cutting out food and drink from your diet. When their housemate and fellow commune member dies of malnutrition, we get all different viewpoints of what happened and why. Harrowing subject matter but beautifully told.

This was certainly an unusual book. Centering around the death from malnutrition of the member of a small 4 person commune, profound legal and moral questions are raised around personal choice and responsibility, a subject I find interesting. However, the way the story is told, through the Greek chorus type eyes of inanimate objects, ideas and emotions - for example a juicer and a piece of wholemeal bread - didn't quite work for me. It was almost too clever and, I felt, didnt really address the deeper themes of the novel and the personalities and motivations of the characters. Having said that I thought it was a really interesting piece of writing, and well translated. I look forward to reading more by this author. Thank you to netgalley and world editions for an advance copy of this book.