Words in Deep Blue

A new book by Australian author Cath Crowley, who also wrote Graffiti Moon and A Little Wanting Song, is always a treat because she is such an exceptional writer. In addition she is especially adept at portraying the emotional landscape of teens. This one has further appeal because it is centered around a bookstore, "Howling Books," and the love of books and their words, a love shared by the protagonists.

Rachel Sweetie, 18, lost her brother Cal ten months before in a drowning incident. She, her brother, and mother had moved to the coastal town of Sea Ridge three years earlier to help out her Gran. Now Rachel is about to return to Gracetown, the suburb of Melbourne where she grew up. She just hasn’t been able to get over Cal’s death, show more and failed her last year of school (although before Cal’s death she was a straight-A student). She will stay with her favorite aunt, Rose, for a change of scene, in the hope it will aid healing her heart.

Before Rachel left Gracetown, she left a note for Henry Jones, whose family owns Howling Books. She inserted it into his favorite book in “The Letter Library.” This is a section of Howling Books where the books aren’t for customers to buy. Instead, as Rachel explains, “The idea is that they can circle words or phrase on the pages of their favorite books. They can write notes in the margins. They can leave letters for other people who’ve read the same books.” Henry’s dad calls it “a library of people.”

In the letter Rachel left for Henry, she told him she loved him. They had always been BFFs, but she realized she felt more, even though he was besotted by his new girlfriend Amy. She never heard back from him, and she was angry, hurt, and humiliated.

Now, back in Gracetown, her aunt gets her a job at Howling Books, much to Rachel’s horror. She will have to face Henry and his sister George every day, and they don’t even know yet that Cal is dead.

When Rachel finally tells Henry about Cal, she explains that it seemed especially unfair to her, not just that he died, but that before the accident, he was so excited about all the things he wanted to do in life and all he wanted to see. Now he would never realize any of it. Henry opined that one could also see it as Cal having gotten lucky in a way, because his last days seemed so beautiful to him, “filled with golden light”:

“Maybe he didn’t get screwed over by the universe. Maybe it was trying to cram everything in for him.”

“Not very scientific,” Rachel counters.

“‘Sometimes science isn’t enough. Sometimes you need the poets,’ he says…”

The two talk a lot about memory and souls and how the dead can stay alive through their stories. As Rachel comes to understand, “We are the books we read and the things we love. Cal is the ocean and the letters he left.” Cal will always be with her.

Meanwhile, all of them are also dealing with the repercussions of the possible sale of the bookshop, because it is failing financially in spite of a [small] coterie of faithful customers. Henry is devastated. He loves books, even though his girlfriend Amy wants him to do something with more prestige and more money. He tells Rachel why the store has been so important to him:

“Books are important. Words are important. Words matter, in fact. They’re not pointless, as you’ve suggested. If they were pointless, then they couldn’t start revolutions and they wouldn’t change history. If they were just words, we wouldn’t write songs or listen to them. We wouldn’t beg to be read to as kids. . . . . If they were just words, people wouldn’t fall in love because of them, feel bad because of them, ache because of them, and stop aching because of them…."

There is a third theme running through the story: that of sea monkeys. These are actually a kind of brine shrimp that grow really fast, but only if conditions are right. If not, they remain in dormant cysts for as long as it takes for things to get better: “And then, when things are good again, the life cycle keeps going.” You can see the metaphor here, even though Crowley is never so blunt as to mention it.

The story is told in alternate narration by Rachel and Henry, with intermittent excerpts from notes left in The Letter Library.

Evaluation: This is a touching, hopeful, and absorbing exploration of the different love that characterizes families, friends, and romances. It is also a paean to books and authors and words. In fact, I compiled quite a list of books I want to read that were mentioned in this one. There are also some side characters so appealing one hopes they get their own book one day. Cath Crowley's books have a way of getting into your heart and staying there. show less

Thank you to GR friend Jessica for recommending this one! The perfect book to read snuggled with a favorite pet and a cup of something warm to drink. This one was soooooo good. But one of those that beautifully deals with grief and loss in all of its different facets so it was a book where I was so happy for the experience of having read it, but one where I definitely needed some breaks in between because the author did such an effective job of drawing you into the pain of the characters.

Rachel has just lost her brother Cal in a drowning accident. She’s failing in school, her mother is unable to move forward, and she’s been shipped off to live with her aunt. Long ago, she had an unrequited crush on Henry.

Henry works at a used show more bookstore, with a lovely tradition of a library where people leave notes to each other in the pages of beloved books. Some of the messages in those pages become poignant and more meaningful as we come to understand them later on. Henry has broken up with Amy, another thread of “loss” and while he desperately wants her back, she’s letting him go. He’s devastated. Henry’s sister has her own plot line as well. The way all of these threads work together, exploring grief, loss, healing and life through letters left in the lending library and through the love of books is so intricately woven, told through exquisite, beautiful language, and a masterful work. This is not a long novel, and I love the way the author did not waste a single word.

Please excuse typos/name misspellings. Entered on screen reader. show less

I had just been thinking that I should read some non-American YA next time when I discovered Words in Deep Blue.

I wasn't planning on actually reading any more YA right then and there, but Words in Deep Blue is set in a secondhand bookshop. Moreover, a bookshop with a Letter Library, books with interesting marginalia which people can add to, or leave letters in. That is an ideal setting for a book! And it was this year’s Children’s Book of the Year Honour book, so that decided it.

Rachel and Henry were best friends until a few years ago, when Rachel moved away and stopped replying to Henry’s letters. But now Rachel is back. Her brother has drowned, and Rachel has given up swimming, broken up with her boyfriend, drifted away from show more her friends and failed Year 12. To escape from the ocean and from everyone who knows what happened, she goes to live with her aunt - unaware that her aunt has arranged for her to work in Henry’s family’s bookshop.

Henry’s parents are arguing about selling the bookshop that is his home. His girlfriend has just dumped him, in spite of their travel plans and non-refundable overseas tickets, and he still has no idea why Rachel stopped writing to him - or why she’s become so grumpy.

This alternates between Rachel and Henry’s POV. It would be a very different, probably lopsided, story if it didn’t, but it does mean there’s a lot less suspense as the reader knows what both of them are thinking. On the other hand, knowing what they think of each other gives a sad story about endings - of life, of relationships, of dreams - a hopeful inevitability.

I know it’s time to get up because Henry starts reciting poetry again. I get my poetry from two places - school and Henry - so I haven’t heard any for a while. The last poem I heard in Henry’s voice was ‘The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock’. Tonight it’s one I don’t know.
The words drop, drunk and heavy, and I see the poem as Henry speaks it - a raining world, a hiding sun, a person fighting to love the terrible days [...] He recites the poem one more time because I ask him. There’s something in it that I need to find. An answer, maybe, to how it’s done, how a person starts living again. I don’t find it. All the poem does is make me ache, in places unlocatable. show less

This is a great book for Bibliophiles because Words in Deep Blue takes place in a used bookstore that has a letter library with books full of marginalia and letters – such a brilliant idea. The story also reminds us that books can not only shed light on our own lives, but they also allow the stories of others lives to live on forever. I was reminded of the Fantastic Flying Books of Morris Lessmore when I read this.

Words in Deep Blue is also about grief and loss, and how people often shut others out after a loss, but then discover that it is only after they let people in that the healing begins and life can start again. Lots of diverse well-drawn teen characters in this story who are figuring out what is important in life, who they show more want in their life, and then having the courage to share their true feelings.

I found the premise of her hometown friends not knowing about her brother’s drowning (not a spoiler – it’s on the jacket) a little unlikely in the age of Facebook, but I got over it as those times when she revealed it were some of the most poignant in the book.

There are a few blank pages in the back of the book. I wonder if Cath Crowley wants us to write on them? Maybe I will. show less

Bawled my eyes out at the end of this book! Fantastic novel by Cath Crowley on the impact of the death of a sibling and the inevitable changes that occur in life and how we must somehow cope with them and carry on.

Rachel has just failed Year 12 as her brother drowned and she couldn't save him. She had been living in a little coastal town after moving from the city in Year 9 due to her parents' marriage break up. She has, for three years, carried around a bitter heartbreak over a note she left in her best friends' bookshop telling him that she loved him. Now, to get away from the sea and it's reminders of her brother's death, she finds herself working at the same bookshop for a Summer job.
Enter Henry; one time best friend of Rachel show more whose family owns the bookshop and who has just brought a round-the-world ticket with his girlfriend Amy, when she dumps him. He is also struggling with the fact that the bookshop is not making money and his mother wants to sell the business as it is in inner-city Melbourne and is worth a fortune to developers.
Told in alternating chapters, Rachel initially hides her brother's death from Henry and his family as she does not want their pity. Henry, on the other hand is very vocal about his breakup and hurt about why Rachel didn't reply to his letters when she moved away. Throw into this the wonderful invention of the Letter Library : a part of the shop where people leave notes for other people in their favorite books or underline words or write dedications to the people they love, whether they are dead or alive!
There are also wonderful side characters in Lola, Rachel and Henry's old lesbian school friend who has a band that is breaking up; George, Henry's younger sister who has been receiving love letters for years from an anonymous boy in the Letter Library and Martin, who, like Rachel, is hired to help catalog the bookshop as they prepare to sell up.

A book about change being inevitable with believable dialog and settings and so well written. FYI there is mild swearing and sex scenes and discussion of sex.

PLOT SPOILER: The anonymous boy is Cal, Rachel's departed brother, and when George figures this out and decides she is in love with him, Rachel and Henry must somehow break the news to George that Cal has died. show less

Your normal cliché story with no special angles.
But there was something about the book that made me read it, something that COMPELLED me to read it, finish it, cry over it, and then come here and talk about it.

And if the world was ending tomorrow, I'd spend it with this book. (That's a reference straight from the book)

This story is about Henry, the self centred dick who is in love with girl who let her new boyfriend push him into the boot of a car and take him somewhere isolated to strip him naked, gaffer tape him to a pole and shoot his video and Rachel, the (ex) best friend who is in love with him and left the city to nurse her heartbreak and take care of her grandmother along with her brother and her mother. It's about George, show more the punk girl who curses more than a Viking, falling in love with a boy who is dead and Martin, who is in love with her. It's about Frederick, the man who lost his wife and the letters he wrote to her in the library and about all those people who left their notes and their books in the letter library.

It's about dealing with death, and finding hope. It's about realisations and science needing literature. It's about losing someone you love the most to the thing you love the most. It's about finding your way back. It's about your journey never ending unless you want it to.

This book was absolutely gorgeous and I don't think I've related to any of the Rachels I've seen or read about before. show less

I like the concept of the book shop, with the library of letters, but the characters, the romance, and even the narrative structure just fell flat for me. I didn't realise that this was a YA novel when I read the blurb, although that isn't usually an issue - I've read loads of brilliant books intended for younger readers - yet realising that Henry and Rachel are only eighteen when they rekindle their star-cross'd 'friendship' just made me snort. I thought they hadn't seen each other for years, a la Grosse Pointe Blank, but no, they've literally just left school. Dramatic much? (Although Henry's youth puts his pathetic pining over Amy into perspective.)

Also, there is literally no suspense, because the characters are so flimsy. Of course show more Henry is going to choose Rachel over Amy, the cardboard cut out mean girl. And once George pulls her head out of her arse, she's inevitably going to get with Martin. Unlike, say, Pride and Prejudice, though, where Lizzy is obviously falling for Darcy, I couldn't believe in these characters as convincing personalities in their own right. They speak in soundbites, talking like motivational posters, and discuss love and death without really convincing the reader that they've experienced either. Rachel talks about her brother's death like she's reading from a handbook on bereavement, and Henry's 'love' for Amy is like a John Hughes film without the humour (or John Cusack). The gushing over Cloud Atlas, which is a good book, also got on my nerves. Readable, but forgettable. show less