Blue Sky Days

by Marie Landry

[Suz @ Bookish Revelations]

Blue Sky Days is a delirious undulating gorgeous journey from beginning until end, I felt myself caught up in the waves of self-discovery, wistful hope amidst a tempest of swirling fear, beautiful romance, and fierce strength that wrapped it's tendrils around my heart and squeezed tight enough to make it ache in all of the right ways necessary that a story of this kind should. It's almost odd, in a way, but I feel incredibly blessed to have gotten to experience this story. Just to be a part of these characters lives for just a moment, catch a fleeting glimpse of what they endured, the lives that they led, and the hope they conquered so much sadness with is such a precious thing to me. I love it, more than anything, when a book can reach out and speak to me in such a way that I'm drawn in between the covers of it, and am able to slip inside of it only for a moment and savor it until the last page has been turned. It awakened so many memories inside of me, but also dared me to look at life from a different view, and just pause for a moment to enjoy the still and peaceful quietness of it. It's rare, when an author has the ability to make me just FEEL SO MUCH, and this story did that and SO MUCH more than I ever imagined it would.

Emma is the character that I ended up loving most of all, because she is so real, sweet, charming, and very easy to connect with emotionally. In a lot of ways, I kind of understand this character and how it feels to try and figure out who you are and what you want to be doing with your life. So, for those reasons, she appealed to me a great deal. I laughed with her, cried with her, felt for her, and just wanted to hug her a good portion of the time. I loved that once she was able to really open up and learn to relax a little and enjoy life as it comes, that she could be so much more than she had been. I also understood her fear of the unknown, her thoughts and feelings on trying with everything that she had to please someone (in this case her mother) and never feeling like she could ever add up or be good enough. She's beautiful and broken, filled with so much hope and fear, that she's not really sure where she's going or what's going to happen, but she's determined to find out no matter what it takes and if spending a summer with her aunt is going to loosen her up and allow her to work through some things and to open up to life, then this is what she's going to do and it's amazing to see her blossom and flower so brightly. The sheer beauty in this character is the fact that she's so genuine and she has this uncanny ability to evolve so naturally on her own, that you can't help but want to go on this journey with her and help her find herself along the way and become a little less lost than she was when she first started out.

Second Chance by Shinedown reminded me of key moments that happened throughout this wonderful novel and it helped to put them into perspective in a different sort of way. There are specific lyrics throughout this song that I could feel so distinctly peppered throughout the beginning of this beautiful novel. Like for instance, "my eyes are open wide and by the way, I made it through the day. I watched the world outside, by the way,I'm leaving out today." This makes me think of Emma finally making the decision to do what she wants to do, to embark on her journey of finding herself and being brave enough to explore new territory. She's through watching the world go by while she sits in a town trying her damnedest to be the best and to make her mother proud, but never quite measuring up and now it's her chance to do what she feels is the right thing for her.

"Tell my mother,tell my father I've done the best I can to make them realize this is my life, I hope they understand. I'm not angry, I'm just saying...Sometimes goodbye is a second chance."

I can see her listening to this as she's driving to her Aunt Daisy's and thinking the same thing about her mother and her father. The distance that her mother and father have put between them, that bittersweet moment between her and her dad before she got into the car and drove off, the shadow of her mother that she thought she saw passing behind a curtain and then thinking it probably wasn't. This is very much her second chance at a life that she so much deserves to have.

One of the things that I love about Daisy, is the fact that she is such a vibrant force of life and a well of inspiration for Emma. She encourages her to take life as it comes and to just live in the moment, appreciating all the wonder and beauty that comes with it. She acts as a beacon of hope in a sea of stormy moments, where the tension and fear of not being good enough engulfs Emma and encourages her to take these moments for what they are and accept the things that she can't change. I love that she colors her life in art and she sees art in life, which translates into her brilliant awe-inspiring talent. Sometimes it's not very easy for people to have the ability to do that, which is why I find her so appealing and such a wonderful breath of fresh air.

From the moment that Nicholas noticed Emma sitting there in the park underneath the beautiful crisp, clear blue sky, and approached her I fell in love with him. I didn't know him, he hadn't said a word, but getting to see the first glimpse of him through Emma's eyes made me swoon just as much as she did and then it made me kind of sad and wistful for her too, in a way, because she even had to wonder why he would take such an interest in her. What would he see in her that she didn't see in herself? Her very self-doubt and insecurities stabbed at my very heart and made it ache all over, but Nicholas made it so much better with his love of life, his sweet and charming way of introducing himself, and wanting to get to know her a little better and show her around town. It was touching and sweet in all of the right ways that it should be, the little butterflies that he gave her when he turned those beautiful eyes on her made this story so much more interesting already. I loved that he was so full of life and had that uncanny ability (the way Daisy did as well) to see the beauty in the small moments that pass you by and to never let one pass you by without living in it, reveling in it, and breathing in the very essence of it and just living. Being open and honest, unafraid, and full of life was probably one of my favorite things about him.

Even though Nicholas and Emma seem to have moved a little fast, their budding romance never did feel like insta-love once and I was thankful for that. I love how honest and loving they were, how supportive of each other, and how strong they had to be in certain moments of their romantic journey through life and through crisis. It was written in such a realistic, beautiful way that easily brought tears to my eyes and made my heart ache in that "oh, so wonderful" way. The good kind. This is the way that a relationship should be written in terms of love, romance, and support. They are loving, kind, beautiful, and such a wonderful breath of fresh air, as they battle the murky waters of cancer that threatens to crash down on them and shake the world from underneath their feet. It's the perfect depiction of the highs and lows that come with any sort of relationship, be it romantic, friendship, or any other. I have never been so moved, as I was, while sitting down to read this and discovering such a daring, hopeful, and inspiring story unraveling right before my very eyes.

The struggles and the friendship that were so wonderfully written and beautifully developed in this story, remind me in a lot of ways, about myself or other things that have touched my life from illness, to the fear of being lost, to learning to open up and live life to it's fullest and brightest potential, in learning to let other's in and trust, and finally just figuring out that sometimes hope really does float, rather than sinking or falling. The wonderful side characters like Vince and Maggie, made it even more enjoyable and lightened it a bit in moments that make you want to pause, and just take a minute to absorb it all in before you move onto the next moment and the one after that. It was a lot of fun to see that each of these brilliant shining characters had a hand in helping Emma to learn new things about herself every day and to never stop exploring or living life, but also that Emma was still strong enough to lean on herself for support instead of just being dependent on other's. That part truly made my heart smile a great deal.

In some ways, Emma's issues with her parents, ended in the way that I can appreciate more than anything because not everything can be all ribbons and bows, happily-ever-afters, and then you go off to live with your Prince Charming in a dreamy far away castle. Life just isn't like that and I love that in this particular story, it wasn't painted to be anything other than what it should have been, as disheartening as it was and as painful a realization as it is to Emma. She grew up strong, kind, all kinds of amazing, and full of daring hope the way that I had hoped she would from the very beginning of this book and she realized the most important thing of all, is that sometimes you don't have to be good enough to be good enough, you just are.

If you're looking for a beautifully written, emotionally charged, and gorgeous book to read then Blue Sky Days by Marie Landry, is the perfect book for you to fall in love with. She writes her characters with a realness and a sense of raw honesty to them, in such an earnest way that will have you laughing, smiling, and crying all at the same time. I think what I love about her as an author and a close friend, is the way that she treats the story she's telling (whatever story it may be at the time) and the characters that she's developing, like old friends that she's just gotten together with again. You can see the love and the care that she puts into whatever story she's telling and the characters that accompany it, peppered so lovingly throughout each of her books. This is the kind of honest, genuinely talented author that will go on my auto-buy list any day.