Paperback: 288 pages Publisher: Flux; 1 edition (May 1, 2010)Genre: Young Adult Source: Author
Rating; 
My Thoughts - How do I even begin? Just wow. The very first time I spotted “A blue so dark” I knew it was a book I had to have because it just seemed so different from anything else out there. I'm not very knowledgeable on the topic of schizophrenia apart from knowing the basics. Reading this novel has creating so much more awareness of this illness.
Aura is a girl who has had to grow up very fast - she is merely fifteen soon to be sixteen, and it has been three years since her father gave up on her and her mother and her parents divorced. She refuses to - like her father would - shove pills down her mother’s throat. Everything will get better or so Aura keeps telling herself.
Within a year or so of her mother not taking medication, her illness has taken over both of their lives. Her best friend Janny who has always been there for her, recently, is letting her down time and time again when she needs her most. Janny however is having problems of her own: having a baby that wasn't planned and a jerk of a boyfriend she is struggling to cope. The lack of understanding and communication only worsens things.
Aura's mother Grace was beautiful once, but that has long changed. She has now become erratic as well as unpredictable with often a mad look in her eyes and Aura hates it, she hates that she’s scared. What scares her more is that when she looks into her mothers eyes she sees herself. Worse yet they both share a passion for Art. This convinces Aura to never paint. Aura isn't exactly very confident and hasn't had the time to worry about girlish things as other girls her age do - such as; dating, make-up and appearance. Having a voluptuous body like her mothers she has no self esteem at all and hides it under baggy hoodies.
Her father has long moved on with a much younger pretty wife. Aura and his ex wife are people he would much rather forget. Aura and I have nothing in common at all: how can we? How can I possibly even imagine myself in her shoes? Being a mother to my own mother, having to worry about leaving her on her own just so that she doesn't kill herself, worrying about my own mother potentially hurting me? If there was a small piece of her that I saw myself in it was probably the trust issue. From that perspective I could completely empathise with her. Also, Aura's character was so well written and so believable that at times I kept finding myself stopping to think - is this the author talking? I seriously felt I could hear the author herself through Aura. I think I lost that fine line that separates a character and the writer. I don't think I've ever experienced that before, if anything, it tells you how well written this book actually is.
Let me share part of a quote with you that stayed with me for quite a while.
"Is he coming?”Mom asked. "Is he bringing the boat?"
And I started to cry, because everyone else in the world was gone by then, and there was no one I could even call out to"
Lets just say I devoured this book within hours. It is the kind of book that makes you take a step back and analyse things around you - it made me appreciate my mother. After reading this I had a big urge to run over to her just see her. I missed the real Grace even though I never really got a glimpse of her until the very end.
Jeremy is one of the positive highlights of the book. Through Jeremy you get to experience the part of Aura that is a 15 year old. Like having a crush; experiencing feelings that young girls like her should have. You see her smile and it makes you wish she smiled like that more often. Nell is a character I really loved. I admired how strong willed she was and the positive change she brought into Aura's life. What I struggled with was coming to terms with forgiving Aura's father perhaps because what he did was truly unforgivable in my eyes...not only leaving your wife at her most vulnerable because you think you can’t cope, but leaving your 12 year old daughter too? As if she should be able to cope? I really connected with Aura and I genuinely wished her happiness -the ending isn't all sunshine and rainbows but as realistic as can be.
One of the highlights of the book for me were Aura's poems -they especially touched me deeply. I had this strong urge to write them down in my Dairy which I had neglected for months. There was this connection with Aura that I felt when knowing that she was writing down the very words as I was that moment. I recorded every poem she wrote in my Diary and I plan on cherishing them because through the poems I got a great insight of her inner thoughts; here is a verse from a particular poem that stood out to me.
I wrote a poem
and gave it to my mother.
I filled it with visions
and voices as beautiful as she.
But it left her bruised,
beaten with its awful truths.
Now I stand
motherless and detached
And I think that I should never write again.
I don't know why but the very last line hits a nerve
Haunting but beautiful A Blue So Dark is a novel that gripped me in so many ways. I savoured each and every moment and was drawn into Aura's world that was filled with danger, sadness, anger, and hope, but most of all a chance of new beginning's.
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