A review by readivine
Ramona Blue by Julie Murphy

5.0

"I've embraced another facet of myself. Life isn't always written in the stars. Fate is mine to pen. I choose guys. I choose girls. I choose people. But most of all; I choose."

Ramona Blue. A catchy title, catchy cover art, catchy blurb, catchy author. MMMYASSS. I never thought I could zoom in through a book and feel it slowly settle permanently within the folds of my heart. In short, I AM IN LOVE WITH THIS.Ramona Blue is 6'3, has blue hair and is gay. Not until ex-beach playmate, 18-year-old and hydrophobic cry baby turned legit swimmer Freddie comes back in the picture of the dreary, sun-drenched town of Eulogy, Mississippi and tips the scales. Now Ramona is just plain confused.

Ever since she and her family have been wrecked by the hurricane Katrina, their mom slowly faded out of the picture and left them with their father to pick up the remnants of their life. But Hattie, her older sister is now pregnant and their father's work is barely holding them up while their cramped trailer truck seemed to progressively cave in and fall into decrepitude matching the somber soundtrack of their life. Ramona sees no other choice but to take up the mantel and erase any glimmer of the future because for her, fate is already locked in position and there's nothing left to do but think about future bills for her sister's unborn child and the amount of work she has to carry.

But Ramona still got 12 months to prepare before the last puzzle piece clicks right in place of her future. Two S's remain. Summer and her Senior year. And with this entails the return of her childhood friend Freddie after 8 years. Sooner than expected Ramona suddenly caught herself eating Egg's Benedict with Freddie and his grandma Agnes in their cozy bungalow, swimming in YMCA with the two every Mondays, watching gore movies in their cramped trailer with Freddie in Halloween, crying over separate LDR's that never worked, and swearing off to not date girls for the remainder of the year. Although Ramona had clearly stated that she is into girls and will always be, it is undeniable that the two are an endearing pair. And while Ramona keeps denying this fact to herself, Freddie makes the first move and completely tips the established balance of their friendship. Now as Ramona tries to recognize and understand her feelings, she is continuously plagued with the prospect of her future and the relevance of the "labels" that imprints her skin.

"Maybe it's not all the little labels that make us who we are. Maybe it's about how all these labels interact with the world around us. It's not that I'm gay. It's that I'm gay in Eulogy, Missispi. It's not that I'm tall. It's that I'm too tall for the trailer I live in. It's not that I'm poor. It's that I'm too poor to do and have everything I want. Life is a series of conflicts, and maybe the only resolution is accepting that not all problems are meant to be solved."

Ramona Blue is an honest and resilient heroine you'll sure love (as much as I have) and the diversity of her environment/ friends (I'm looking at you Saul and Ruthie!) will leave you wanting to be with them physically. Ramona's decisions and perspective will surely enthrall you and how she deals with everything that blocks her way. By the end of this book, you'll be able to see how much everyone in the book evolved and embraced change. How even the most destructive obstacle will be the silver lining that propels you for something better. And for that, I would like to commend Julie Murphy for. Her fluent prose had made every matter in Ramona Blue much easier to read and delve into the depths of the issue between sexuality, the established labels society had conjured, and the unfathomable spectrum of love.

"My heart is elastic. I realize it for the first time. For so long I thought there was a limit to how much love I could hold and who I could give it to. But life is so much more dynamic than that. Love doesn't disappear when you give it away, and new love doesn't make old love any less legitimate."