LitPick Review
Shades of Blue is a story about two teenage neighbors that grew up as best friends. Sam and Jojo live two completely different lives and have two completely different personalities. Jojo has a happy, understanding, and supportive family. Jojo’s family does everything together and they do not keep secrets from each other. On the other hand, Sam has a very broken family. Sam never knew his dad, and he has only known his mom to be a drunk along with his stepfather. Sam’s family has many secrets and his stepfather is a very abusive drunk. Neither Sam nor his stepsister understand why everything is happening, but all they want is for it to stop. Sam is a very sweet, heartfelt person, but he tends to take any form of abuse lightly. Jojo has more of a rough, “tomboy” personality, but she would rather blow problems off and ignore them, unless the person she cares about the most is in danger. Sam and Jojo start off facing typical teen issues, until they realize that there are much deeper issues than their little teen drama. They realize together that there are many secrets buried deep within Sam’s family and they will stop at nothing to reveal every buried secret and make the rightful person pay for what he has done.
Opinion:
Shades of Blue is honestly one of the best books I have ever read. I felt like I was Jojo, the narrator, while I read this book. I felt like I was actually a part of this story and I was there to witness everything. Joyce Scarbrough, the author, did an amazing job at writing this book to pull the reader into the story and make the reader feel everything as if it were happening to their own life. I loved both Jojo and Sam’s characters and I loved the relationship they had with each other. This book was definitely a heartfelt tearjerker. Out of all the books I have read, I think this is the only one that really brought tears to my eyes. This story gives hope, not only to abusive families, but anyone that is going through a rough point in their life, that everything will be okay, and there is always a way out, regardless of the situation. I could not thank the author enough for creating this wonderful story. I definitely recommend this book to anyone, especially readers that are searching for hope, faith, and maybe even love.
