INTO THE LIGHT

An edge-of-your-seat mystery with speculative elements.

Seventeen-year-old Manny only cares about one thing: watching a show broadcast for local audiences in California with Deacon Thompson, a man from Christ’s Dominion church who claims he saves children. In the backgrounds of these videos, he hopes to catch glimpses of Elena, his sister. It’s how he keeps track of her and knows she’s well—until the day he learns from the news that a body has been found outside a religious camp, and he spirals. Manny is homeless and has been hitchhiking rides with strangers for the past year, but ever since meeting the Varela family near Fresno, he sees a new possibility for his future and maybe his sister’s; that is, if the body isn’t hers. In its gripping and raw exploration of White saviorism and the predatory ways White adults in positions of power are able to endanger children of color, this mystery’s proximity to reality is viscerally nauseating, a testament to the author’s skill. The initially confusing nonlinear timeline and points of view are eventually clearly shown to be deliberately disorienting; everything about the storytelling feels surgically intentional. As they grew up without knowing their family of origin, Manny and his sister aren’t sure of their background but believe they are Mexican like the Varelas. Manny, along with many other characters, is queer.

An important and searing read on the value of family, agency, and belief.