Scan barcode
A review by secretmagic
Raw Blue by Kirsty Eagar
3.0
I want to start this off by saying there is a lot of surfing in this book, surf talk and beach culture. It's true, Australians are seen as beach bums and we revel in this image. Our beaches are fantastic - even if you're not really a beach person, you have to admire the beauty of the Australian coast and the sound of the ocean. But that being said, the sum of my surfing knowledge comes from movies like Blue Crush and TV shows like Blue Water High. I'm basically a surfing noob. So I was really impressed with the detail in Kirsty Eagar's novel. Whenever Carly was discussing the swells and power of the ocean, I could picture the Australian coast....or maybe that's just because I live near the Aussie coast, so I could picture that instead.
When this was published, I'd guess it was aimed at a young adult audience. And while it definitely has a familiar young voice, I feel like the book world now would place it in the new adult genre. Carly is a young, nineteen year old girl living day to day as best she can after being raped during schoolies week a year before the events in the book. I felt so much for Carly. She believed because she didn't say no, because she was drunk and out of it, that she must have been partly to blame for her misfortunes, instead of blaming her rapists completely for violating her boundaries. Every time she made herself feel worthless and vulnerable, I wanted to reach through the pages and give her a big hug. She drilled the need for silence into every part of her life and it left her broken inside.
I like that the romance in this books wasn't over the top, but I would have liked a bit more of it towards the end. I know Carly was trying to work through her issues alone, and I'm glad she found the strength to do it, but the slightly open ending just made it feel incomplete. I wanted more. That being said, I enjoyed seeing Ryan and Carly ease into their relationship and I'm happy that the story was more about Carly being comfortable in her own skin, than just falling in love.
I think the only part that I didn't love for this book was some of the dialogue. It was very Aussie - all the Nahs and Mates thrown into every conversation. It did show off the Australian way of speaking, but I also felt like it was overdone, trying too hard to add an extra 'mate' to show off the way blokes talk to each other. Maybe it's my lack of surf knowledge. Maybe all surfies do throw around mate more often than anyone else. But I felt it broke up the dialogue a bit, trying to be a little too Aussie.
4/5 stars
When this was published, I'd guess it was aimed at a young adult audience. And while it definitely has a familiar young voice, I feel like the book world now would place it in the new adult genre. Carly is a young, nineteen year old girl living day to day as best she can after being raped during schoolies week a year before the events in the book. I felt so much for Carly. She believed because she didn't say no, because she was drunk and out of it, that she must have been partly to blame for her misfortunes, instead of blaming her rapists completely for violating her boundaries. Every time she made herself feel worthless and vulnerable, I wanted to reach through the pages and give her a big hug. She drilled the need for silence into every part of her life and it left her broken inside.
I like that the romance in this books wasn't over the top, but I would have liked a bit more of it towards the end. I know Carly was trying to work through her issues alone, and I'm glad she found the strength to do it, but the slightly open ending just made it feel incomplete. I wanted more. That being said, I enjoyed seeing Ryan and Carly ease into their relationship and I'm happy that the story was more about Carly being comfortable in her own skin, than just falling in love.
I think the only part that I didn't love for this book was some of the dialogue. It was very Aussie - all the Nahs and Mates thrown into every conversation. It did show off the Australian way of speaking, but I also felt like it was overdone, trying too hard to add an extra 'mate' to show off the way blokes talk to each other. Maybe it's my lack of surf knowledge. Maybe all surfies do throw around mate more often than anyone else. But I felt it broke up the dialogue a bit, trying to be a little too Aussie.
4/5 stars