M.L. Stedman’s novel The Light Between Oceans has received much praise as of late due to its recent adaptation into a romantic drama starring the ever-brilliant Michael Fassbender as former Army man Tom Sherbourne and ingénue Alicia Vikander as his vibrant, young wife, Isabel.

As such, I was optimistic as I embarked on the journey off the west coast of Australia toward the elusive Janus Rock with Stedman and her intriguing characters. As the story progressed, however, the vivid imagery and attention to detail fell just short of the necessary connections of a story.

One second, I was transported completely into the gossiping small towns on the Australian coast where “news of the outside world trickled in like rain dripped off trees.” And the next, I was left hanging, not quite feeling anything one way or another for the struggles of the infertile newlyweds.

It seemed as though Stedman was hiding these promising characters behind a shield of descriptive detail, keeping the reader just far enough away from them so as to not grow attached.

Just as Janus Rock, the lighthouse to which Tom devotes much of his time, keeps boats away from its rocky shore, The Light Between Oceans keeps readers from truly experiencing the plot. They are kept a safe distance away as if to maintain the beauty of it all at the expense of any lasting impact the Sherbournes’ story may have had.

As much as you want to love these brilliantly constructed characters, you can’t. Each loss, each devastating moment, is buried by descriptions. Stedman transitions from the loss of Tom and Isabel’s first child to the clouds “that formed and grouped and wandered across the sky” so quickly, you almost wonder if you even felt for their loss at all.

In this sense, Stedman’s beautiful words are both her salvation and her downfall. The plot is saved by her wondrous ability to make even the mundane descriptions of a wooden desk chair come to life. And yet, this attention to detail kills the life in the story.

The Light Between Oceans is a story about passion, loss, family and the depths to which we are willing to sink for those we love.

The tale of Isabel and Tom is meant to evoke feeling, but any emotion conveyed is lackluster in its appeal to the reader. There is nothing in this book that is unpolished or visceral. Nothing to convey the pain beneath its pretty words.

This being said, the novel does have points of incredible beauty.

Every line of this 343-page saga is clearly constructed with a purpose. Each word is a choice made by Stedman to move toward technical perfection. With hard hitting phrases like “isolation lulls him with the music of the lie,” her writing is reminiscent of the work of Anthony Doerr, bestselling author of All the Light We Cannot See.

Stedman also over performs with feather-light musings on how Isabel and Tom’s borrowed daughter Lucy had hair “that floated like seaweed as he held her in the water” and how the “magpies caroled their waterfall song” with “notes that fell in splashes over gum trees beneath the bleached azure sky.”

In the end, Stedman’s meticulous phrasing only serves as scenery to a storyline that falls flat in its underwhelming portrait of a grieving family’s attempt to heal.

Watch the movie?

Stars: Michael Fassbender, Alicia Vikander, Rachel Weisz

Director: Derek Cianfrance

Going into the movie, I was hopeful that the strong cast would pull through some of the passion that the book seemed to lack.

The movie, however, swung to the other side of the spectrum. Each scene was filled with an overabundance of emotion. Even the brilliance of Fassbender and Vikander was not enough to keep the script from coming across as sappy and overdone.

Is the movie worth it? Not if you are paying for a ticket. When it shows up on Netflix, it may be worth the watch on an afternoon with nothing better to do.