Why is it that we can relate so easily to pain, to struggle, to despair instead of happiness and joy?
When you say “emotional story” there’s a small possibility for you to be referring to some positive feelings. You always imagine yourself in your bed, with a book in your hand and a lot of tissues around you.. Why do we remember the bad things in our life with such intensity but we forget so easily all the good things that happen to us?
“If I was a sheep, I’d be black.”
For Carly life has never been too easy.
The only thing that she wanted with all her heart was to really be “seen” – as she was quite invisible for all the people she wanted to care for her, starting with her family.
If I were to analyze her life, something broke in her self-esteem the moment she realized that, no matter what she did, her father (and all her family) will never be proud of her, will never care… She felt like she was not enough, not even in her own eyes.
The only thing she did good was surfing. She was happy on her board, flying through the waves, away from all those eyes that looked at her somehow disappointingly.
“My father’s eyes can be the coldest place on earth.”
So you might say that this is not enough to make up for all the drama, that this can happen to all of us, but this is just one small drop in a big glass of water representing the mess in her life.
What happened in her past that she never told anyone, keeping all the pain inside, giving up university, banished from her home by her father, working by night as a cook next to some people she just couldn’t connect to – these are just some of the problems she is facing.
And what really got to my heart is the way we see her change through the story.
She starts by trying to forget the past, to ignore it, to deny it.
She finds out in the hard way that you can hide from the past, you can’t forget if you can’t forgive and she really didn’t forgive herself for what happened to her. She couldn’t get past the shame, the anger, the frustration, and she decided to close herself to the world, she tried to get lost into surfing.
Meeting Ryan is just the missing piece from her puzzle, and being able to see the whole picture, being able to face her deepest fears is what makes her stronger.
But when the reality sinks in, is she strong enough to keep afloat?
‘You can’t just lay down and die’
Kirsty has a way of showing, not only telling, the way Carly feels, and it is simply heartbreaking to watch her everyday struggle, to find her weaknesses, to measure her fears.. When your heart feels like you have lost everything and it falls apart, the only way to unbroke it is to find a new reason for it to beat.. a good friend, a lover, a reason to smile, a reason to wake up in the morning and get out of your bed and live your life.
The only problem I had with this book is a missing connection with the character’s passion for surfing. For people leaving in places were surf is just something you see in the movies, too many details become distracting and a little bit frustrating, but don’t worry, there’s plenty of fish in the sea and you will have enough reasons to love this book.
RAW BLUE is a great story about the different ways to break a heart and also about how hard it is to make it all right again.
“What did he say? You can’t always pick your friends. Well, he’s damn right there. I have two friends here: a fifteen year old who sees people in colors and a salsa-mad Dutch woman. I didn’t pick them, they just turned up in my life, and I’m really glad.”
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