Scan barcode
A review by heather4994
Raw Blue by Kirsty Eagar
5.0
Here I sit having just finished a borrowed copy of Raw Blue and I'm astounded by the phrasing and poetry of words that this author can write. We all speak English, at least the books I read, and yet the way Kirsty Eagar puts words together is like hearing them for the first time or painting a picture with new colors you've never seen before. It amazes me to find an author like that. And Kirsty Eagar is one of those authors. But it isn't just about the way she has with words. It's the story and the characters and the surfing and the ocean. It's the whole damn book. It's everything. I can't pick one thing out of it that I like the best.
Carly is broken. But functioning and that's the best she can say for herself. She gets up, surfs until she's tired. Then gets ready for work and works the evening shift in a cafe in the kitchen preparing things meticulously and avoiding her coworkers and conversation. She works only as much as she needs to cover the bills and rent. She's quit school, "uni" and been quit by her family. "If I was just angry, it'd be easy, but it hurts too, it hurts so bad, because I love my mum and I'm scared being out of my family. But when I'm in it, I feel like I'm being pressed into the wrong shape. Things with Dad will never be the way I want them because I'm not what he wants. I'm trying to accept this but it's funny how you forget all the time." (p. 20) This early on, we find out how alone Carly is and how remote she's kept herself from everyone around her even now. She's got an upstairs neighbor that she speaks to, but no one really knows her or that something terrible happened to her.
Another passage that was so profound to me was "This is why people kill themselves, they can't get away from the things they carry in their heads. Shame isn't a quiet grey cloud, Shame is a drowning man who claws his way on top of you, scratching and tearing your skin, pushing you under the surface." (p. 37) From these two passages a bleak image of Carly's life outlook is painted even though you'd think, surfing on the ocean, the rush of the water, the sun and the adrenaline would give her a sunnier outlook. But obviously her shame overshadows everything. Stories in the news remind her of what's happened to her. Her every waking moment is filled with the fear that she'll hear their voices, the voices of the ones that did this terrible thing to her.
Her coworkers are all disgusting to me with the exception of her boss, Emilio. Marty is a pig, going after any and every girl, the two women are chain smoking gossips, Adam with open sores on his hands sticking his fingers in all the food, Roger the alcoholic. The only worthwhile one is the little boy she meets while surfing who she takes on as a semi apprentice to work with her, Danny. She surfs with him and chats with him on the water. Totally big sis, little bro stuff. But he's also like an emotional barometer for her because he can see the colors of things and people and her color changes based on her mood.
Mostly what I see in Raw Blue is Carly, trying to exist outside of what happened to her. But she knows what's happened to her and that it's affected her, but she seems to be trying to live around it or over it, not dealing with it, not accepting it, not admitting it. Not only does it cause her isolation, but mistrust of every male, and people in general. She finds out Marty is homeless and thinks, "I'm waiting for him to ask if he can crash at my place. Even though I don't want him to, I'll say yes, because it seems to me that people always want something from you and I can't work out how to hold the door shut against that any more."(p.86) Her boundaries have been crossed and with the borders down, she doesn't know how to put them back up. She doesn't know how to enforce the boundaries she once had, so she's afraid to come out of the cave like existence she's been living in.
I think Kirsty Eagar steps into the shoes of Carly, a girl raped and unable to deal with it and leads us through her journey of dealing with it. I think that many rape victims would benefit from reading this novel, but I know many more people who enjoy good fiction will enjoy reading this powerful story. I didn't plan to read it in one sitting, I had other things to do, but I couldn't put it down once I started reading. And there were so many quotable moments. There were times to smile and times you wanted to pull your hair out and times you just wanted to cry for Carly or with her. It's a realistic look at the effects of rape on a young woman and the aftershocks that follow it. I highly recommend it for older YA readers.
Carly is broken. But functioning and that's the best she can say for herself. She gets up, surfs until she's tired. Then gets ready for work and works the evening shift in a cafe in the kitchen preparing things meticulously and avoiding her coworkers and conversation. She works only as much as she needs to cover the bills and rent. She's quit school, "uni" and been quit by her family. "If I was just angry, it'd be easy, but it hurts too, it hurts so bad, because I love my mum and I'm scared being out of my family. But when I'm in it, I feel like I'm being pressed into the wrong shape. Things with Dad will never be the way I want them because I'm not what he wants. I'm trying to accept this but it's funny how you forget all the time." (p. 20) This early on, we find out how alone Carly is and how remote she's kept herself from everyone around her even now. She's got an upstairs neighbor that she speaks to, but no one really knows her or that something terrible happened to her.
Another passage that was so profound to me was "This is why people kill themselves, they can't get away from the things they carry in their heads. Shame isn't a quiet grey cloud, Shame is a drowning man who claws his way on top of you, scratching and tearing your skin, pushing you under the surface." (p. 37) From these two passages a bleak image of Carly's life outlook is painted even though you'd think, surfing on the ocean, the rush of the water, the sun and the adrenaline would give her a sunnier outlook. But obviously her shame overshadows everything. Stories in the news remind her of what's happened to her. Her every waking moment is filled with the fear that she'll hear their voices, the voices of the ones that did this terrible thing to her.
Her coworkers are all disgusting to me with the exception of her boss, Emilio. Marty is a pig, going after any and every girl, the two women are chain smoking gossips, Adam with open sores on his hands sticking his fingers in all the food, Roger the alcoholic. The only worthwhile one is the little boy she meets while surfing who she takes on as a semi apprentice to work with her, Danny. She surfs with him and chats with him on the water. Totally big sis, little bro stuff. But he's also like an emotional barometer for her because he can see the colors of things and people and her color changes based on her mood.
Mostly what I see in Raw Blue is Carly, trying to exist outside of what happened to her. But she knows what's happened to her and that it's affected her, but she seems to be trying to live around it or over it, not dealing with it, not accepting it, not admitting it. Not only does it cause her isolation, but mistrust of every male, and people in general. She finds out Marty is homeless and thinks, "I'm waiting for him to ask if he can crash at my place. Even though I don't want him to, I'll say yes, because it seems to me that people always want something from you and I can't work out how to hold the door shut against that any more."(p.86) Her boundaries have been crossed and with the borders down, she doesn't know how to put them back up. She doesn't know how to enforce the boundaries she once had, so she's afraid to come out of the cave like existence she's been living in.
I think Kirsty Eagar steps into the shoes of Carly, a girl raped and unable to deal with it and leads us through her journey of dealing with it. I think that many rape victims would benefit from reading this novel, but I know many more people who enjoy good fiction will enjoy reading this powerful story. I didn't plan to read it in one sitting, I had other things to do, but I couldn't put it down once I started reading. And there were so many quotable moments. There were times to smile and times you wanted to pull your hair out and times you just wanted to cry for Carly or with her. It's a realistic look at the effects of rape on a young woman and the aftershocks that follow it. I highly recommend it for older YA readers.