Firefly Lane by Kristin Hannah 🧚🏽🧚🏽🧚🏽💫 (3.5/5)
Firefly Lane is a story about a friendship between two women that spans several generations and bridges major life changes, betrayals and deep-rooted jealousy. I was excited to pick this up because I adored Hannah’s later work, The Great Alone, and while this book exhibits the bones of good writing, (and what later developed into exceptional writing) I had a few issues with it.
Set in the Pacific Northwest, this book details pivotal moments in Tully and Kate’s lives while describing the setting and eras of their lives in complete detail. This is one of the greatest strengths of Hannah’s writing in this novel - the small town outside Seattle, Seattle itself, and the specifics of the 70s and 80s are so clear I felt I was dropped into the middle of the era itself. If I had to name a main character in the book I would name the Pacific Northwest of the past.
Here’s the crux of the issue - the setting and history overtakes the growth and development of the main characters. My copy of the novel shows a pile of Polaroids of the two friends and this demonstrates how the story reads to me - the key moments in the women’s lives are captured but we are not present for the in-between. Because of this, I felt that the friends were always in conflict and I found it hard to understand the women as best friends without seeing the moments of tenderness and love between them.
That said, I was so engaged in the story I didn’t put it down and I truly felt that I had time-travelled to a place I have never been. I am interested both to pick up the sequel novel and watch the Netflix adaptation of the book. CW for drugs and rape.
