We Burned so Bright by TJ Klune

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✦ BLURB ✦

Husbands Don and Rodney have lived a good long life. Together they’ve experienced the highest highs of love and family, and lows so low that they felt like the end of the world.

Now, the world is ending for real. A wandering blackhole is coming for Earth and in a month everything and everyone they’ve ever known will be gone.

Suddenly, after 40 years together, Don and Rodney are out of time. They’re in a race against the clock to make it from Maine to Washington State to take care of some unfinished business before it’s all over.

On the road they meet those who refuse to believe death is coming and those who rush to meet it. But there are also people living their final days as best they know how–impromptu weddings, bright burning bonfires, shared meals, new friends.

And as the blackhole draws near, among ball lightning and under a cracked moon in a kaleidoscope sky, Don and Rodney will look back on their lives and ask if their best was good enough.

Is it enough to burn bright if nothing comes from the ashes?

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🌌 "Even the end of the world can’t dim a love that’s burned for forty years."

Pre-Reading Thoughts:
I know TJ Klune is capable of emotional devastation disguised as comfort, so I’m both excited and mildly bracing myself. The premise feels like The Last of Us meets The House in the Cerulean Sea, but through a telescope pointed straight into the heart. End-of-the-world stories always tug at the “what would I do?” thread - and I’m curious how Klune handles that mix of grief, acceptance, and legacy.

Post-Reading
As I thought…
It’s emotionally rich and quietly haunting, with Klune’s signature compassion shining through even in the face of annihilation. The road trip format gives it a sort of elegiac rhythm - you feel every mile and memory.

It surprised me by…
How scientific it felt at times. The black hole isn’t just a metaphor; it’s rooted in believable astrophysics, which grounds the emotion instead of overwhelming it. Some of the vignettes - those small human moments amid collapse - hit like short, sharp breaths. It’s one of those books that ends and then lingers like an echo.

⚠️ Content Warnings:
Off-screen murder, implications of suicide, grief, and end-of-life themes.

MUSIC PAIRING

• 🎵 Featured Song: “Holocene” – Bon Iver

• 🎶 Vibe Album: Carrie & Lowell – Sufjan Stevens

• 🎧 Artist Recommendation: Novo Amor (for that “cry quietly in the dark” energy)

VIBE CHECK

• 🎨 Colour Palette: muted indigo, candlelight gold, and the faint glow of a dying sun

• 🎬 Soundtrack: gentle acoustic guitar over static and silence

• 🍂 Season: winter giving way to spring

• 🕯️ Mood: wistful, reverent, inevitable

• 🌌 Scent: cold air and old paper

Tarot Pull: Death. It could only be the card of transformation and endings. Sante Muerte, the Mexican saint, watches over our endings and our beginnings.

For fans of:
The Road (Cormac McCarthy) and Leave the World Behind (Rumaan Alam)

🃏 The deck had opinions: [Card Name] — [Comment about how it fits the book]

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