Words in Deep Blue by Cath Crowley Review

WARNING: THERE MAY BE SPOILERS BELOW

“We are the books we read and the things we love.”- Words in Deep Blue, Cath Crowley

Love lives between the lines.

Years ago, Rachel had a crush on Henry Jones. The day before she moved away, she tucked a love letter into his favorite book in his family’s bookshop. She waited. But Henry never came. 

Now Rachel has returned to the city—and to the bookshop—to work alongside the boy she’d rather not see, if at all possible, for the rest of her life. But Rachel needs the distraction, and the escape. Her brother drowned months ago, and she can’t feel anything anymore. She can’t see her future.

Henry’s future isn’t looking too promising, either. His girlfriend dumped him. The bookstore is slipping away. And his family is breaking apart.

As Henry and Rachel work side by side—surrounded by books, watching love stories unfold, exchanging letters between the pages—they find hope in each other. Because life may be uncontrollable, even unbearable sometimes. But it’s possible that words, and love, and second chances are enough.

Sometimes science isn't enough. Sometimes you need the poets.

Have you ever fallen in love with a book despite yourself? That's how I feel with Cath Crowley's books. I love them irrationally. I love them despite their flaws, despite the fact that she writes the kind of books I would have never even considered picking up. Romantic contemporaries that feel like summer. In fact, if I hadn't loved Graffiti Moon with my whole heart, I wouldn't have ever even considered picking up Words in Deep Blue. For one thing, this book felt more romance heavy than Graffiti Moon. And yet, I loved them both the same way.

The main reason why can be summed up in one word- (the) writing. Cath Crowley's writing does something to me. There's so much emotion behind it that I feel like laughing when she wants me to laugh and crying when she wants me to cry. And yet I don't feel manipulated by it. I don't know how to describe it, but sometimes, when authors write things that sound beautiful, I can't help but imagine them in their little office, typing out that beautiful sentence and then mentally patting themselves on the back for it. But not with her. I get the impression that her words are genuine. In a lot of ways, her writing reminds me of Markus Zusak's in that he can do the same thing to me. She is the only writer thus far whose musing on the "universe" had the intended emotional effect on me.

I also loved the way Crowley writes about literature. She writes about the same way she writes about art in Graffiti Moon. Even though I didn't like some of the writers she mentioned- I hate John Green, for instance- I loved how she found something beautiful in that kind of writing. It was like how in Graffiti Moon, she managed to find something beautiful in Rothko's work, which I think is pretentious bullshit. But I was able to understand why she would appreciate it. Besides, for every one author she mentioned I didn't like, she mentioned several that I adore- TS Eliot, F Scott Fitzgerald, Charles Bukowski, Kurt Vonnegut, Cormac McCarthy, Pablo Neruda, I'm probably missing one. I was kind of surprised, though, that there was no reference to cummings. I would have thought his abstract writing and swoon-worthy language would have been perfect for Crowley.

I also liked all the characters. I wanted Rachel and Henry to end up together. I wanted Lola to convince Hiroko to stay (though I knew she wouldn't). I liked George and Martin, not necessarily together, but I was fine with them as friends. Heck, I even liked both Rachel and George individually. Normally I would have hated them- Rachel the science-y heroine I usually can't relate to at all and George the emo outcast who the author usually tries painfully hard to write. But for some reason, I liked them all and wanted everything to work out instead of being annoyed by everything working out like I usually am.

I will say this, though, there is a major, major flaw in this book that is the only thing that gives me serious reservations about loving this book. And it's a technical flaw, not a personal opinion. I cannot tell Henry's narrative from Rachel's. The two had the exact same voice. Which I wasn't expecting, because I don't remember having that same problem in Graffiti Moon yet it also had alternating points of view. Though maybe it did and I just ignored it? I also felt like the way she enjoys overlapping events between POVs so she can show how both parties think of the same event was less effective here than in Graffiti Moon, because, again, they felt so similar. Perhaps alternating first person POVs maybe wasn't the best decision here- I would have perhaps chosen third person. So, in the interest of not looking like a hypocrite because if I had liked this book less I probably would have given it a lower score because I find something like that to be a big deal. 

But yet again, the emotion connection I formed with this book trumped any flaw, even a major one. There's something about Cath Crowley that I find so easy for me to love. I love her main characters, I love the way she writes couples, I love everything about her sweet romances with so much more going on than romance. At the moment, she is my Zusak substitute- while I still prefer Zusak, he hasn't written much at the moment so I need Cath Crowley to fill the void in my life desperate for some poetically written, hard hitting, emotional contemporaries.

9 out of 10