Out of the Blue: A heartwarming picture book about celebrating difference

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I think this has a really great storyline overall. My friend Alexis, who gifted this book to me, said that it's "Contemporary with a speculative twist" and I have to agree so much. I think this is definitely falsely labeled as Fantasy on Goodreads because while this does have this paranormal element of "Angels" falling down to Earth, the themes and topics of this book are very much Contemporary.

Ron Rash is renowned for his writing about Appalachia, but his latest book, The Caretaker, begins ... There's this one particular paragraph about loss that I can't get out of my head and the Universe is my witness when I say I hope I made it justice translating it. The champagne corks have barely finished popping in celebration of Faith's fifteen years of wedded bliss with Peter before a small, niggling doubt sets in. On the surface, Faith and Peter have a lot to be thankful for: two teenage children, an enduring partnership and glamorous media careers – he as a publisher, she as a TV weather girl. With its simple writing style and characters this book feels like it's written for an even younger audience than the average young adult novel. It would be unfair to give a negative rating just because I'm too old to enjoy this book properly. Overall, despite the gripes that I had, I just had a really good time reading this novel and found myself very emotionally invested. It's also generally super unique and actually made me crave more novels about Angels, which I never thought I would say.Some aspects of the novel that made this a 4 star instead of a 5 star: some miscommunication that I felt was pretty unavoidable and near, close but not quite cheating? Seems like a bit of a pattern seeing as this was also employed in Jay's Gay Agenda. I also thought the writing could've been better, though I found myself pretty satisfied with the writing as is. Jaya, biracial gay and scottish, finds a fallen angel in a world where angels keep falling from the sky without anyone knowing why. But this angel, unlike others, is alive. And now here we are. Writing a review of a book I even felt meh on six months ago, when it was fresh in my mind. Which it now definitively is not, even a little bit at all. The only thing that really specifically annoyed me was the fact that this book seemed to very actively resist the use of they/them pronouns in reference to the beings. I was seriously sitting here like,,, really,,, y’all seriously gotta strictly enforce the whole Western gender binary thing onto creatures who may not even have a concept of gender??? or might have a completely different gender binary?? Like, they call them she or he, and the people who don’t call them that call them “it.” Every time I saw that I was just sitting there like “just say they/them/their.” It was so annoying Here’s an interesting and useful article about why you should use the singular they. It’s more inclusive and less awkward than using “he or she or it.” The angels started falling from the skies 10 days after Jaya's mother died. Determined to catch one alive, and overcome with obsession, Jaya's father uproots their shattered family to Edinburgh. With her family reaching crisis point, and Jaya still struggling with her grief, the unthinkable happens - a Being lands at Jaya's feet, and an extraordinary relationship begins to take shape.

This is a riff of the The Little Mermaid with a queer love story at its front, and if that sounds like your type of thing, then this might be the book for you.

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This is about Jaya, a Cool Teen whose life is looking a bit tragic at the moment because her mom is #RecentlyDead and now she’s being trotted off by her dad, who is fully freaking. Also her younger sister is there.

Which leads me to- the whiplash. The constant anger and drama coming out of left field was exhausting and usually pretty ridiculous. I couldn't take any of it seriously and it just made me feel like the characters were even less mature and fleshed out. I also thought the fake dating was solid, there was good communication, a well paced shifting from fake to real, and there was definitely chemistry between the characters.a b c d e f g Hinsliff, Gaby (23 November 2022). " Out of the Blue review – the rise and fall of Liz Truss". The Guardian . Retrieved 16 December 2022.

There's also the *myriad* of questions I have about the mythology of this story, but I won't bring them up because it seems like the mythology wasn't the part Jason June was interested in exploring or constructing. Much like Disney Channel movies, don't think too much about it. Take it at face-value.) When I first heard about Out of the Blue, all I was hearing about was ‘fallen angels’ and ‘f/f’ romance so it was easy to jump to the conclusion that there were sapphic angels! There isn’t, but the relationship between Allie (who is disabled and bisexual), and Jaya (who is Sri Lankan and a lesbian) was lovely and heartwarming. And it is a huge part of the book so no need to worry about that. It was poorly executed, rushed and felt unrealistic. I wish the author would've taken more time and added some details. It felt particularly short compared to the long and slow middle part of the book.The angel, Teacake, was super awesome and freaking beautiful, as I’ve said before. I really want to see this book made into a movie because, a) gay, and b) YES. HELLO. THE ANGEL, especially after all the wing grafts where she has different color wings ooooohhhh yeah, IS SO BEAUTIFUL. The only thing you get out or this book is that Liz Truss is not a likeable person, nor a good one, nor a brilliantly competent one. I suspect many of us had already guessed that. Also, practices *decrease* the closer you get to a big meet -- like "states" -- not increase. Sean has practice twice a day 2 weeks before his big meet? Nope. That's a shave-and-taper event -- your practices decrease so your energy can increase and you can rest your muscles so you're not exhausted and they don't crap out on you. I really enjoyed the relationship that built between Ross and Sean, and I really appreciated the non-binary rep from Ross. In the world of Mer, gender identities don't exist, making all merpeople nonbinary with they/them pronouns, as well as Mer neopronouns which Ross does not employ on land because they're trying to keep their Mer identity a secret.