Raw Blue

by Kirsty Eagar

• ISBN10: 1846471559
• ISBN13: 9781846471551
• Publish Date: 1 August 2012
• Publish Status: Active
• Publish Country: GB
• Imprint: Catnip Publishing Ltd
• Format: Paperback
• Pages: 288
• Language: English

Reviews

[Bianca]

It’s like hearing a song for the first time and being struck by it, haunted by it, wanting to hunt it down and catch it, because the song sums up something you didn’t know you wanted to say, giving you chills and goose bumps. But even as you find out what it’s called, and you’re thinking you’ll download it, you’ve already lost. Because the feeling was right then and there and it’s already fading like a dream.

[Kelly]

Kirsty Eagar has the unique ability to create a storyline that feels as though you're experiencing it through the words of a friend. There's an incredible rawness from cover to cover, realistic characters who deal with real trauma without romanticising issues to cater to the sensitive audience. But underneath the hurt and despair, lies a strong young woman who is ready to take control of her life. It's confronting, it's gritty and I fucking love Kirsty Eagar.

GO VAGINAS!

[Jo]

Originally posted on Once Upon a Bookcase.

Having an idea of what Raw Blue by Kirsty Eagar was going to be about, I was looking forward to reading what I thought be an awesome novel along the lines of Easy by Tammara Webber. Raw Blue is an amazing story, but not in the way I thought it would be.

When Carly is surfing, nothing else matters. It's her escape. When she's out in the ocean, she doesn't have to think about her issues with her parents, that she has no friends, that she's desperate to be alone. She doesn't have to think of the reasons for taking life one day at a time, living for surfing, and blocking everything else out. But then she meets Ryan, and Carly can't stay away. The more time she spends with him, the harder it is to hide her past. Some secrets won't stay buried, but blocking things out is the only way she can stay afloat.

'When I was eighteen three men broke me in, and they left marks on my body, too.'
(p172)

Raw Blue is such a wonderful book, but it's a hard one. Carly has been shattered by what happened to her; her shame is limitless, and she feels if people knew, she would be shunned. I said already that I thought Raw Blue was going to be similar to Easy, but though there are Jacquelines who fight for control over their own life with their heads held high, there are also Carlys, who have had their self-worth dashed. Some people swim, but others sink, and those who sink deserve to have their stories told, too. And Eagar does a wonderful job giving those people a voice.

The rape happens before the book starts, but we have flashbacks. It's not very graphic, but it doesn't need to be. Inside Carly's head, her pain is enough to hurt you too. Carly is really struggling. She is drowning in her pain, and can't see the surface. Sometimes she doesn't see the point in trying to find the surface. Anger is her constant companion. But she leaves it at the beach when she paddles into the ocean to surf. Despite this, she is strong, and is trying to get on with her life. She dropped out of uni, moved to Manly, got herself a job as a cook at a cafe in the evenings so she can surf in the morning. Might not be the best of solutions, but she's trying to move forward in the only way she knows how. She's running, and that seems to be working for her, so far.

As I said, she's angry. So angry. She's angry at those who raped her, and she's angry at herself. Anger that leads to such overwhelming shame.

'Rape is the perfect crime because the victim is the guilty one. I did not fight back; I did not say "no"; I did not make a sound.' (p44)

Her shame is so huge that she's not told a single soul. She has never had a great relationship with her parents. Her father expects her to do what he wants, his way, with no argument on the matter, and her mother goes along with her father. When Carly tries to live her own life, her father makes her feel less because of it. The following quote shows exactly her thinking on the good that telling her parents would bring.

'He'd won. I was exactly what he thought of me. All this time and he was right. I was disgusting. The shame I felt. The shame I feel. But I could not have borne the shame he'd make me carry. I could not have borne my mother's disappointment. I never told them.'
(p173)

And her friends at the time... well, they weren't the right people to tell.

'I was worried that they'd smell it on me. Afraid they'd see the stain of it on my face. Because I couldn't trust them with it I realised. If I told them, I'd hear the thrill of it in their voices. The drama. The bigness of it all. They would pick me me apart like birds feeding.'
(p174)

I loved how Carly has this unique, or at least rarely mentioned, view of how others - strangers - see people who have been raped. I found it very thought-provoking, and made me feel quite sick.

'If you've been raped, you become a Rape Victim. When people talk to you, they'll have a picture of you in their mind - you lying on the ground, men moving over you. But they won't be empathetic; they won't put themselves on the ground. They taste power, that little hint of vinegar that puts a twist to their lips and saliva in their mouths.
Look at the media. They concentrate on what was done to the Rape Victims. First by the rapists and then by the courts. They're feeding something there. People are greedy for the details, fascinated sick by them. I think it should be illegal to tell. I think that the person who was raped should own the copyright on what happened to them. They never give details on what happens to the rapist, later, when they go to jail. Nobody cares.'
(p176)

Once Ryan becomes a solid presence in the book, there are a few sex scenes in Raw Blue. It's awesome to see Carly find her way to a healthy sexual relationship, enjoying being with another person. It's not overly graphic, but there's enough to show at first her nervousness, and then her enjoyment. And although there is romance in the book, it's not the main focus. A big deal, sure, but this is Carly's story. Ryan is important for Carly in how his presence in her life causes her to face her past, and for his support even when she doesn't want it.

Ryan and Carly's relationship with him are the catalysts that bring her to actually face what's happened, and where she has to choose how to live her life from then on. It's not pretty. In fact, it's incredibly sad. But with the two friends she makes over the course of the novel, Hannah, her Dutch neighbour, and Danny, a 15-year-old who she meets when surfing, who latches on to her like an older sister, in their own ways help her through. Her relationship with each of these three people is wonderful, and Carly allows herself some vulnerability with them. It's beautiful to see her fight what's been hurting her for so long, because of these three people in her life who care. The first people who seem to actually really care.

Raw Blue is a brilliantly moving book, ultimately uplifting, and really quite beautiful in it's poignancy. I highly recommend it!

Thank you to Catnip Books for the review copy.

[Joséphine]

Raw Blue is one of those books with a very apt title. It indeed is a raw book. It's a book about finding yourself, dealing with or avoiding the past (whichever way you see it) and coming to terms with family differences. There're a lot of reasons for Carly to be down but she has one escape: surfing.

For Carly, surfing is everything. She plans her life around surfing, and that includes her part-time job at the café where she works as a cook, even though she needs to earn the money to support herself. Cut off from her family because she dropped out of university, Carly is left to fend for herself. And fend for herself she does. Out on the water, she's a loner. She doesn't care much for interacting with other surfers. It's easier not to care anyway since many guys look down on female surfers. The friends she does make, she doesn't choose. But she feels safer this way, cut off from the world.

At first I didn't really get Raw Blue. Trudging along Carly's life was a little dreary. She was so negative and when she wasn't negative, she was callous at best. She had little direction, so I didn't even know where the book was supposed to go. In a way, it felt like Carly's choice to distance herself from human contact extended to the reader as well. But as the plot unfolded, I started to see why she was the way she was and had she been any other way, I don't think the story would've rang with such honesty and rawness.

In a way, I think Raw Blue is one of those books that had to be written because it portrays a side of life that isn't always portrayed in books. Not with such heaviness. I liked that no part of the story was belittled or glossed over. There was no attempt to make things seem worse or better than they were. That's something I appreciated because issues books often become all about the issue or try to gloss over the effort it takes to overcome such issues. Not Raw Blue. Raw Blue gives us a glimpse into Carly's life, portraying both the highs and the lows, and anyone who's looking for an NA book that isn't purely preoccupied with sex and romance should definitely consider reading this book right here.

This review is also available at dudettereads.com.