It is the story of how, through her determination to make her impossible life possible and with the love of those around her, she has managed to find light in even the darkest of places Told with great beauty, humour and honesty, Girl in the Dark is the astonishing and uplifting account of Anna's descent into the depths of her extraordinary illness. During the worst, she must spend months in a darkened room, listening to audiobooks, inventing word-games and fighting to keep despair at bay.

During the best times, she can venture cautiously outside at dusk and dawn, avoiding high-strength streetlamps. Now her extreme sensitivity to light in all forms means she must spend much of her life in total darkness. Then the burning spread and the problematic light sources proliferated. It began with a burning sensation on her face when she was exposed to computer screens and fluorescent lighting. She enjoyed her job she was ambitious she was falling in love. Photo-sensitivity or not, Anna Lyndsey brings a lot to the table, and I think she deserved better.Anna Lyndsey was living a normal life. I tried to chalk this up to English dryness but was unable to. I spent the whole book waiting for the turning point where it would turn into the advertised love story (not because I needed it to be that, just because it said it was that), only to end up completely incredulous that his big profound trait seems to have been that he simply didn’t dump her when she became disabled, and hung around unenthusiastically for the rest of the book.

This lukewarm, underwhelming guy who bails on her when she needs him because he needs a damn vacation, leaves her hanging with no particular warmth when she brings up living together, and rarely provides her any real reassurance about the state of their relationship, which she would understandably be very anxious about. Between her and this guy! Not, like, her and the English language or something. But this guy? The jacket says that ultimately the book is a love story. Look, I can’t tell someone else what keeps them going or gives their life meaning. I do really take issue with the emphasis placed both on the jacket and within the book on the transformative power of her relationship. It wasn’t that I didn’t think someone with a debilitating illness (in Lyndsey’s case, she has an extreme sensitivity to darkness that forces her to spend her life in total darkness) could be funny and brilliant and interesting, it’s just that I didn’t think a book solely about one particular illness would be…what it turned out to be. It’s funny and sad and really, really, really beautiful.

There’s a recurring metaphor for suicidal thoughts that it just incredible. I thought this was going to be a depressing read that I trudged through because it was short and I sometimes feel obligated to bear witness to others’ pain.

Girl in the Dark by Anna Lyndsey