Saturday, July 11, 2015

The A-Z of Black Eyed Boy. Z is for ... Zest.

It’s the last blog post for the A-Z of Black Eyed Boy. I almost went with zeal. Emily certainly has much enthusiasm in her devotion and pursuit of Dylan. I changed my mind at the last minute, opting for zest instead. I think this theme really shows the impact that Dylan has upon Emily and her life. At the beginning of the book, Emily is bored and disillusioned with pretty much everything around her.

It’s different when you live here; you forget to look at the picturesque views, and fail to remember the simple pleasures of feeling the sand between your toes. It all becomes just: a photograph on a postcard to send elsewhere, meant for those who appreciate it, who have saved their wages to come here for a short time, and then sullenly depart, back to their own lives. I’m always here; Whitby is where I was born and where we still live, and sometimes the pebbles and the candy floss just don’t thrill me. When all of the tourists had settled back into their holiday cottages, I had stayed out alone, wishing that something exciting would happen, but suspecting that it never would.

As you can see, zest, energy and excitement are clearly lacking. I feel sorry for her. She feels like a ghost in her own home as her parents are eternally preoccupied. There isn’t much hope left in her that things will ever change and improve. I think we’ve all felt like that at times. When she isn’t messing about with her best friend, Billy, Emily’s days are monotonous and dull. But, not for long …

We turned the corner and I stopped in my tracks. There was a boy, probably a little older than Billy and me. I’d never seen him before, so took him to be a visiting holidaymaker. He had the blackest hair I’d ever seen. It was long and unkempt, and he had to keep sweeping his fringe out of his face so that he could see properly. He was tanned and toned, and was wearing only a pair of black shorts and some tatty trainers. He was tall and ridiculously handsome. His bare chest and confidence made me lose composure. Suddenly I felt much too hot.
           
The change in her begins immediately. On seeing Dylan for the first time, she experiences a physical reaction. Little does she know that her life will now never be the same again. Emily has to contend with the biggest and most painful life events during the pages of Black Eyed Boy. She doesn’t understand how she will get through the tragedy and heart-break. But now she has Dylan and he loves her. And even during those bleakest moments, her heart still sings at the pure joy of her first-time romance. Dylan becomes something of a drug to her. She forever needs her next fix.

“Neither have I,” I confessed. “I hadn’t even kissed anyone until you came along.”
“That’s because those lips were made for me,” he said, softly tracing the shape of them with his fingertip, reigniting the fire that had only just been extinguished. We kissed for ages, standing on the edge of the sand. People walked by but I didn’t care. I was too busy falling head over heels in love.
But, unfortunately, when you’re kissing the boy of your dreams, something odd happens to the time. It races ahead without your knowledge or permission, and leaves you mystified as to how an entire day has remarkably elapsed.

I’m obviously not going to reveal the end as you may not have read the book yet. But there is hope. Emily finds her own way to pick herself up, dust herself down and find that all-important zest; the way to finally live her life with a sense of anticipation. Her eyes are open to all the beautiful things that life has to offer. And that puts a silly and soppy smile on my face. Because, it turns out, I am far more of a romantic than I ever knew I was.


 I hope that you have enjoyed the A-Z. There's a link below if you're interested in reading the book:







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