From the reviews for How the Light Gets In:

‘Hyland is an intelligent writing grappling with serious questions about how we make our way through the world.’ The New York Times

‘Heartbreaking and compelling.’ Observer

‘Expect to be blown away.’ The Guardian

‘A dry and fantastically sarcastic voice…’ Time Out New York

‘Spot on.’ Irish Examiner

‘….a disturbing work which simmers with edgy brilliance.’ Sunday Herald.

‘The best book I read this year…’ Mark Cousins, Scotland on Sunday

A remarkable U.S. debut that is “a brilliant capturing of the intensity of a child on the frightening brink of adulthood that simultaneously incorporates bleak humor and deep emotion.”  (Sunday Telegraph, Sydney)

Louise Connor, a precocious and unhappy sixteen year-old is offered a place as an exchange student in the USA, something that she hopes will take her far away from her bleak life of poverty in Sydney, Australia. Having endured childhood with an emotionally crass, deadbeat family, she welcomes the opportunity to live the middle-class life she has long dreamed of. But not long after she moves in with her host-family, the Hardings—who live in a pre-fabricated mansion in a nameless Chicago suburb—Lou’s acute need for acceptance and love runs up against the Harding’s suffocating pursuit of a particular form of suburban perfection. 

How The Light Gets In is a cleverly observed, complex portrait of a girl on the verge of adulthood whose world–like Holden Caulfield’s before her—is full of mixed-messages. With shades of American Beauty and the work of A.M. Homes, M.J. Hyland has produced a masterful first novel that mesmerizes the reader from hopeful beginning to haunting end. 

“Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering,
There is a crack,
A crack in everything
That’s how the light gets in.”
—Leonard Cohen, “Anthem”

• M.J. Hyland is a Pushcart Prize Nominee
• BookExpo America appearance and signings
• International excitement has generated sales in France, Italy, Holland, Canada, Australia

After the death of J.D. Salinger, the Guardian book blog takes a look at the challenges facing authors creating a young narrator. Maria’s debut novel, How the Light Gets In gets a mention, with narrator Lou being described as
“a contemporary, female Holden, just as cynical and sensitive, but with less self-conscious verbiage”
You can read the [...]

Here’s part of an old interview Maria did with Irish journalist Sinead Gleeson, around the time that How the light gets in was published in the UK and Ireland
Why did you pick a teenage girl as the protagonist in this novel?
I didn’t set out to write about a teenage girl, it was mostly an [...]