The Illumination

This is written cleverly. It is a series of short stories, really, but they are all tied together by the journal of a woman who dies in the first ten pages. The book takes place in the near future when for some reason all pain - physical and emotional - radiates light from the body. You can locate the exact source of pain just by looking at someone. One of the characters, the one who loses his wife in the beginning of the book, gets into self harm, and his was the most interesting story to me - the creation and release of pain - physical pain distracting him from his emotional pain.

This book will be unsatisfying if you like everything to tie together at the end. It feels as if you drop in on the characters for a short period of time and get to know small bits of them - to understand them even - and then you're on to the next story. Kind of like reading a blog. :-)