4.5 stars!!! 
 Gives Light is the story of Skylar St. Clair - a 16 years old boy who is shy, sensitive and mute. He " lays low" and doesn't really have friends. His best friend is his dad. He doesn't have a mom... she was murderer when he was 5, in front of him... and on that day besides his mom, he lost his voice too. 
 He lives alone with is father, Paul Looks Over, a native american. Skylar looks nothing like his father, he's got his mom's curly blond hair, freckles and brown eyes. 
 Skylar's life gets turned upside down, when, one day, his father goes out and doesn't come back... days pass by, so Skylar goes to the police, thinking that something may have happend to him. 
 Because he is 16, and the police can't find his dad, Skylar is sent to live with his Grandmother (his only other living relative) in 
 Nettlebush Reserve 
 - the indian reservation that he and his dad lived in, before his mom died. 
 On Nettlebush there is No TV or Phones, everybody knows each other, he doesn't know anybody, he is the only"white" one and everyone knows what happend to his mom. Even Worse, it was there that his mom was murdered! ...and soon he comes across a 17 years old boy that looks just like his mom's murderer - Rafael Gives Light - His mom's murderer's son! 
 But Skylar can't even begin to imagine how living in Nettlebush is going to change him.... for the best! 
 There he is going to find Friends... 
 There he is going to find a Family... 
 There he is going to find a Place he Belongs to - (a home, a community....) 
 There he is going to find Love... 
 There he is going to find Himself! 
 Rafael is nothing like Skylar expects him to be... and, slowly, they become friends. 
 "I wasn't the only boy whose life had changed 11 years ago" 
 "I'd thought I'd never feel confortable alone with him. My half-memories were memories of a monster. But this was a boy like any other boy, albeit a very surly one. He liked reading and drawing and, okay, really terrible music. And unless his uncle said otherwise, he had never killed anyone." 
 Rafael was always looked down upon, because of his father being a serial killer... like everyone was afraid of or expected him to grow up and turn into one too. 
 "Rafael was a boy who had suffered through more than his fair share of loss. He tried to hide it, but he was sensitive and compassionate." 
 Rafael understands Skylar like no one else can... he is able to understand what he is thinking and feeling... even without talking.... 
 "I could scratch my chin or quirk my eyebrows or tilt my head and he knew exactly what the gesture meant. He knew what I was feeling, if not what i was thinking. He made me feel like I had a voice." 
 ... with time they become inseparable... and, slowly, Skylar's feelings for Rafael grow and turn into something more than Friendship. 
 "Death wasn't a waste of life. My mom was gone, I'd never have a chance to know her. But it was through her abscence, aching and acute, that I had come to know Rafael instead." 
 I really liked this book ... I loved the sense of Community in Nettlebush ... I loved that place SO much, that I wanted to move in there too :) 
 I really liked the characters too... Skylar, Rafael, Annie, Aubrey and the Grandmother... 
 Rafael ... I REALLY, REALLY LOVED him... and Skylar too. 
 The story is told only in Skylar's Point of View... I would have loved to read Rafael's POV too (There's always Lending Light, that is in his POV, I know...) 
 Anyway... this is a Beautiful Love Story...but most of all... it is a Coming back Home story, a Dealing with your Past story and a Finding Yourself story. 
 Skylar and Rafael's story continues in Looks Over.