Novel addresses the struggles of change

This year of upheaval and insecurities makes planning hard. Anticipation of future events and moments gathering with friends and family were often hijacked. Loneliness and despair sneak in and steal our joy in such moments. Nothing takes the place of face to face relationships. When uncertainty blocks familiarity, hard questions rise up.

No one wants those feelings to persist. That’s the sad and angry place we find Kara, a sophomore.

In Dark Blue by Melody Carlson, a YA novel, Kara loses her childhood best friend when their interests and friend choices change. Loneliness and deep sadness mark her days as she struggles through the transition, but along the way, she makes new friends and discovers who she is.

When our lives get shaken up, that uncomfortable, scary place leads us to new revelations about who we are. The choices we make determine our direction. Sometimes we hang on to unhealthy or stagnating relationships because of fear of change. Tearing free from those causes pain, especially, if we aren’t the ones who initiate the separation.

Written in first person, present tense, one feels she is walking along with Kara. The book starts off as a downer, but one keeps reading to find out how she lifts herself out of this. Hard things happen with her new friends, but Kara grows stronger on her journey and learns to stand up for what she believes and becomes the kind of friend we all want.

There isn’t a lot of action in this novel. It’s more the story of one girl’s journey to discover herself. You read on to find out how she overcomes.

It feels like the snippet of someone’s life, someone who might be you at a troubling time, so you root for her and press in telling her, “Don’t give up.”

In the course of the story, Kara makes a new best friend. By the end, the pain has been replaced because she grew into a more confident, assertive person.

At less than 200 pages, this is a quick read. Dark Blue is the first in the True Colors series. It dealt with trust. I haven’t read the next two yet, but the blurbs in the back said the next two are about jealousy and issues of sexuality, the price of choices, respectively.

If you like character driven, contemporary fiction, check out Dark Blue.

What struggle have you recently bested?