Dark Blue by Melody Carlson

~~~~~~SPOILERS (AND JUMBLED CONFUSION) BELOW.~~~~~~

Dark Blue revolves around Kara, who's been BFFLs with this chick Jordan since kindergarten. All the sudden, sophomore year, Jordan becomes a cheerleader and leaves Kara in the dust for her new popular crowd. The book deals with Kara's struggle of feeling so hopelessly lonely after losing her best friend.

Twenty pages into Dark Blue, I felt like I was reliving my high school years, and more personally, my struggle with severing a friendship--a sisterhood like Kara's. I kept finding parts of Kara's narrative that absolutely hit home for me. The one I remember most vividly was Kara's crying over realizing that her relationship with Jordan was over. Holy beejeebus, that was me. Totally, completely, awfully. Another time, Kara walked out of school one day, went back to her house, and crawled under her covers; I remember calling my mom to come pick me up one day because I couldn't stand how god-awful I felt and then I went to bed.

Luckily, like me, Kara ends up connecting with some other people and realizes that her codependent relationship, her utter obsession with Jordan, was unhealthy--a way to fill the gap. I remember that obsession, all of those frightening moments where she and I would try to avoid each other and hate ourselves for caring about what the other thought or didn't do. I still remember when she ran out of church because she couldn't handle seeing me; I still remember craving to see her, even though seeing her scared the crap out of me. But it beat the utter numbness, the complete loneliness I felt.

Anyways, Melody Carlson is a Christian author, so of course Jesus references abound, but I gotta say...I cried when Kara did, so touched by a message that she felt was just for her; I cried when Kara accepted the message, when she realized that her obsession was just to fill the gap we all have because we all crave our Savior to fill that hole. Basically, I cried a lot in this book--one chapter after another near the end. I don't really know if I cried because I knew Kara's feelings or because I was so happy to find out that Kara was going to find happiness.

Which kind of helped me realize that I'm not totally heartless or callous or hardened. Which is both nice and confusing. Nevertheless, after the desert I've been crawling through--or maybe the gorge I've been stuck in--and despite some water to drink--or brief glimpses of the sky--those tearful experiences reminded me that I can still hear You, still feel You.

On another note, I gotta say, I always fall for the dudes in books. They're always so dang cute, and this one was no exception: Edgar wins my heart this round, though if he and Ian from Identical showed up before me, I have no idea who I'd choose. Edgar wasn't even a love interest in this book, but he was so dang adorable--and heartbreaking. Dude, ya made me sob. I hope you make a random appearance in the next book.

The book has a nice conclusion where Kara and Jordan hang out again because Jordan's basically been ostracized, or on the verge of being so, from her cool kid crew. Kara, now with Jesus as her BFFL, doesn't have this overwhelming need to latch back onto Jordan. In fact, she kinda feels bad for Jordan, but she's not gonna go crawling back. To which I say, "Cheers, Brah!" So they're cool again, just like in my experience, but all the codependency is broken, also like my experience.

The next one, which is kind of a sequel and kind of not, is about Jordan. Apparently she "stole" one of her cheerleader friends' boyfriends. Which always begs the question for me--why the heck do girls always go after each other instead of the dude? Ain't nobody got "stole"; brotha made his choice to be a jerk.