She has secrets and angry scars of hurt – but when we meet her she is trying to push forward and put a bandaid over her war wounds. At the beginning of the novel, Carly is deep in repression. It’s about how anger and its triggering grief will never remain dormant for long, no matter how much we try bottling it. ‘Raw Blue’ is, first and foremost, a novel about anger. But recently ‘Raw Blue’ warranted a re-reading, and I now feel able to get my thoughts down and communicate my praise. It stays with you, burrows deep and gnaws away months after reading so that you keep turning it over and admiring new angles and smoothing it out. Because that’s what sort of book ‘Raw Blue’ is. And also because after my first reading, I had to put the book down and walk away for a little while. I never wrote a review of ‘Raw Blue’ though, mostly because I feared being unable to do the book justice.

I read this book last year, shortly after I interviewed Ms Eagar about her second novel, ‘ Saltwater Vampires’. ‘ Raw Blue’ was the 2009 debut novel from Kirsty Eagar, which also won the 2010 Victorian Premier's Literary Awards Young Adult Fiction prize. And she can’t hide from Ryan, a local surfer with a shady past who makes Carly feel safe, for the first time in a long time. She can’t hide from her new surf buddy, the young boy Danny who has synesthesia and sees people’s true colours. And her anger about what happened to her that night. Fear of men and their pack-like behaviour and intimidating masculinity. She’s hiding from her fear, and her anger. in those moments, Carly thinks that maybe she can go on.īut she is still hiding. The beautiful moments when she catches a wave and is in the tunnel of the surf. She surfs and she remembers why she’s still here. At night Carly’s nightmares creep in, and sometimes while driving she’ll be tempted to run herself into the guardrail and end it all.īut during the day, and especially early in the morning, Carly is found. She is living with a salsa-dancing, man-mad Dutch woman and working as a short-order cook at the cafe in a surf town. She has dropped out of uni and off her family’s radar. Will she let the past bury her? Or can she let go of her anger and shame, and find the courage to be happy?

Then she meets Ryan and Carly has to decide. and the only thing that helps her stop thinking about what happened two years ago. Surfing is the one thing she loves doing. Carly has dropped out of uni to spend her days surfing and her nights working as a cook in a Manly café.

Raw blue by kirsty eagar