Book Review: My Sunshine Away

A seemingly random act of violence can change a neighborhood and the people in it.

My Sunshine Away by M.O. Walsh is about how a community copes with the rape of a teenage girl in their neighborhood and how the rape changes them all.

Lindy Simpson, 15, was raped one evening in 1989 while riding her bike home to her Baton Rouge neighborhood. The story of how things changed (and sometimes how they did not) after Lindy’s rape is told through the eyes of the boy who lives across the street and who loves her. He also was a suspect in the student athlete’s rape.

Walsh’s storytelling was incredible. The characters were vivid. I just had to know how it ended. So much so that I stayed awake long after my bedtime reading until my eyes blurred. That’s my sign of a good book.