Review of The Lights Between Tunnels

It has been several years since The Lights Between Tunnels was published. It is a book that is patterned after a high school here in Blount County. I just got the opportunity to read and review this amazing book. Kudos to Mr. Wichert for writing this excellent book. Read my review: Shawn Wichert writes an intriguing tale of the life of three high achieving high school students in his 2018 book, The Lights Between Tunnels. It is an important book that examines the stresses from school, home, society, and the world that the most responsible teens take to heart in today’s world. The three students, friends from elementary school years are inseparable. Alex, a brilliant young woman who lost her mother at a young age, struggles to deal with school, her own depression, and her father’s addiction. Cameron is an accomplished young man from a well-to-do family who has no worries about how his future college will be funded but deals with parents who expect him to cultivate his friendships from their financially successful social network. Peyton deals with the horrors of the past that have landed her in the custody of her aunt. The characters in Wichert’s book are well developed, realistic, and likable. The challenges they face as high achieving AP and dual enrollment students are real. The plot of The Light Between Tunnels centers around a competition sponsored by a wealthy alumnus of their public high school in East Tennessee. She offers a five hundred-thousand-dollar scholarship to one student of the many who enter a pseudo-academic/problem-solving competition that spans the school year. Two of the three friends enter the contest with the other providing emotional and other support to the two whose socio-economic status requires assistance with their post-high school futures. I found this book to be not just a realistic account of the life of some of the brightest in our secondary schools but an entertaining read as well. Shawn Wichert’s book is well written, easy to read, as well as one that makes some profound statements about how stress can affect our youth and our own obligation to be watchful and protective of this vulnerable population. Read this book, it is one that will give you pause and stay with you for a long time.