Out of the Blue was one of those novels where the ‘what if’ question haunts you – where the themes get under your skin. And I do mean it in a good way!
Summary
Ten days after Jaya Mackenzie’s mum dies, angels start falling from the sky. Smashing down to earth at extraordinary speeds, wings bent, faces contorted, not a single one has survived.
Hysteria mounting with every Being that drops, Jaya’s father uproots the family to Edinburgh intent on catching one alive. But Jaya can’t stand this obsession and, struggling to make sense of her mother’s sudden death and her own role on that fateful day, she’s determined to stay out of it.
When her best friend disappears and her father’s mania spirals, things hit rock bottom and it’s at that moment something extraordinary happens: An angel lands right at Jaya’s feet, and it’s alive. Finally she is forced to acknowledge just how significant these celestial beings are.
Review
(I received this ARC as part of Miss Print’s ARC Adoption Program)
The major draw for me for this book was the premise and it delivered! I mean hello angel beings falling from the sky? What I loved was that Cameron uses this incident to have a conversation about grief and loss. It’s about just more than the actual specifics the actual day to day activities with the Beings, it’s about what they mean to us as individuals, as families, and as a people.
I was really happy about the diversity in the novel, Jaya is half Indian and she is also a lesbian (there’s also a bisexual side character as well). There’s also a f/f relationship within this book. But in general, the characters were really great because each of them were unique. I felt like they could have been fleshed out a little more – in some areas they felt sparse. I did really like Jaya, mostly because she has this quiet personality. She’s unassuming and she has all this potential to surprise you.
Themes
Out of the Blue is about who the beings are they mean for our reality as we know it. It’s got all this symbolism and imagery to unpack. The concept of angels falling from the sky destabilizes everyone – believers and skeptics alike. It introduces the idea of what happens after, but it also means that we have to come to terms with what each day means. When the possibility of more is introduced, how do we live for today?We are haunted by ghosts of our family members, of beings from the sky, and ex girlfriends. At the same time, we struggle with the challenge of living with a temporary existence with no guarantees of tomorrow never knowing what could happen. This book is about belief, and about existence – about questioning what we thought to be true and about accepting what we cannot control (if we can). Check out Out of the Blue on Goodreads.
I found the premise really curious – enough so that I added it to my TBR without having read any reviews of it. Now that I’ve read your review, I’ll keep it on the TBR and hopefully get to it someday, lol.
LOL that is the struggle isn’t it?? Let me know when you read it 😀