This was a very intriguing book because not only is the story unusual but the main character is a very conflicting character. Her struggle comes across strongly but it can still be difficult to relate to her and her actions. You have to be in the right frame of mind for this book, it's not an easy read.

The Taste of Blue Light follows the journey of a young woman called Lux, an Artist at an elite British boarding school. Unlike most books featuring boarding schools, this book seemed to transcend the class divide. Lux wasn’t a girl with a life so distanced from most ordinary people’s as to be impossible to understand. The struggles she faced could affect any one of us.

The prose is hauntingly beautiful. This is a book to be savoured rather than devoured. I bookmarked so many different pages to re-read the words later that I might have to invest in a paper copy to fold down the corners.

I admire Ruffles' ability to track back in time and really take on the voice of an eighteen year old struggling to find herself. I've scarcely before read YA that felt so real. I also appreciated the sense of extension beyond the boundaries that YA usually sticks too.

The central mystery of The Taste of Blue Light, what will keep you reading through the slower chapters, is what happened after the party. The truth was not what I was expecting at all. When it came, suddenly and brutally with the force of a thousand tiny shocks, I was lost for words. In my head I had constructed a narrative of how I thought this book was going to go, how everything was going to end. What happened at the party. But what I found was nothing like what I had expected.

After the big reveal, things changed pretty quickly. The reasons for all of Lux's symptoms clear, there was something lost in the last chapters of the book. The mystery gone, it seemed as if the story was meandering towards the end of the track slowly once again. But I loved Lux, her friends and the boys she cared about, so I couldn't stop reading on to see if everything was going to be alright. Beautiful and haunting, this book is one of my unexpected favourites of the year so far. A must!

Thank you to Netgalley, the publisher and Lydia Ruffles for my Copy of The Taste of Blue Light. 
'I will find the old Lux and when I do I will climb back inside her and sew myself into her skin so I never get lost again.' 
Lux Langley is an artist, she writes amazing stories and goes to an exclusive school which is only for the best artists in the world. She spends her days forgetting what mainstream subjects she's learned, and her nights at decadent parties, lighting fireworks, taking drugs and dancing with her equally fun friends.
A month after the leaver's party, Lux wakes up in hospital with no recollection of how she got there. The last thing she remembers is going to a party with some of the people she was working with at the Gallery where she was an intern. Despite Doctors attempts to help her recall her memories, Lux returns to school trying to grasp at some normality while still not knowing what is wrong with her. Now back at school she has migraines, flashes of weird colours and scary episodes of anger and distress to deal with. Who is the real Lux Langley and will she ever find her?

This is a passionate, incredibly emotional novel, which I think readers of John Green and E Lockhart will really enjoy. Lux is a complex character who one can neither love, nor hate. Nor pity in all honesty. Lux's character is too strong to pity, which leaves you with a hodgepodge of emotions towards her and her struggles. Most of the novels focus on the interior life of Lux as she tried to adjust to her old life when she is no longer the old Lux.
'Sometimes I want to be the kind of person who makes life easier for other people. And sometimes I wish everyone I love would die so I wouldn’t have to worry about hurting them anymore.' 
Many of Lux's feeling are relatable, particularly if you have ever suffered with anxiety, depression or similar mental illnesses. Her journey is rife with emotion, and frankly I could not put this book down, nor because the story was gripping and fast paced (in the way that say a crime thriller is) but because it was so emotionally charged. I was desperate to know what had happened to Lux but I was happy with the slow pace of the novel to break it to me gently.
A truly beautiful novel which everyone should read.