I love reading a good book. I’m sure that comes as no surprise. But I also love taking those books and internalizing them. After that phase, I want to share that book with everyone, and I want to hear the author’s own take on it. I can appreciate what authors have to say about their books much more since I started writing books myself.
As readers, we take an author’s work and experience it. The way we experience it is unique to each of us. We’re all different people, and we all have different perspectives on the world. Despite all of that, so many books have been loved by so many people because we’re all human. I believe we all relate on some level.
That feeling of experiencing a book your own unique way is amazing, but we want to share that feeling with other readers. That’s why we share the books we love, right? Well, it all started with the author. Because of that, I always love to hear the author’s thoughts on their work. It often brings in a new point of view and can be very insightful.
Today, I thought I’d talk about Blind to Love.
I’m one of those authors who never lacks for new ideas. The hardest part for me is figuring out which books to write first. I can’t tell you why this book won the lottery, but I can tell you my thoughts behind it.
I like YA books. A lot. They’re my go-to reading. With writing and ideas, that means I often default to YA. And not just YA. Magical realism. If I had a favorite genre, it’d likely be young adult magical realism. I like the stories that take you on a whimsical journey deep-seated in realities. They’re often heartbreaking and thinkers.
With Blind to Love, my first thought was contemporary. I had this contemporary setting I wanted to explore. The story takes place in fictional areas, but you can imagine somewhere in the USA since I never explicitly give a state, only fictional city names. Specifically, one BIG city and one SMALL town.
It’s probably not fair to say Blind to Love is anything but a young adult contemporary romance, but it does have a hint of that magical realism that is at the core of the love interest’s story.
Which brings me to this: Why is it every young adult romance of any kind seems to favor the “bad boy”?
Now, okay, I know there are cases where our girl gets the nice boy at the end, but what is it with readers and their fascination with the bad boy? Even I leaned that way in a bunch of those love triangle YA stories. I came to the conclusion, for me at least, that it was because the bad boy always seemed to have a much more interesting story/personality, while the “good boy” fell flat.
I wanted to reverse roles here. So, instead of my boy love interest being a bad boy, I wanted to make him good. Likewise, I can’t think of many YA books I’ve read where the girl is a complete brat or “bad girl.” I decided that would be my main character.
Say hello to Avery and Moriah.
Moriah tells the story of Blind to Love. I’m not going to lie. She’s probably a character who will initially rub any reader the wrong way. I would have felt the same if I hadn’t known the ending before I started writing the book. And that made things tricky. What makes most people want to read a book is relating to or empathizing with a character. There are bits and pieces, even in the first chapter, that hint at why Moriah acts the way she does, but that doesn’t make her attitude any less abrasive in the beginning. “She doesn’t have it that bad,” you might say.
This is first and foremost a coming of age story. Moriah isn’t “bad” just to be bad. Who is? And being a teenager is hard. It’s a lot of growing up and figuring out who we are and what we want.
So, Moriah is our bad girl. That means Avery is our good boy, right? Well, kind of. Just like nobody is just “bad,” nobody is just “good” either.
Avery is a mystery to Moriah, and one she would have never bothered with if circumstances hadn’t led them together. Moriah is shipped off to her grandparents’ house at the beginning of the novel because her parents feel she needs to get out of the city for the summer. Her grandparents are rosarians, and Avery, the “blind boy,” works for them.
Avery is a pleasant person. He’s nice. But he’s not perfect. He’s got baggage. A lot of baggage. And hurt. Dealing with Moriah could probably make anyone crazy, but he does what he can. Sometimes he’s hot, sometimes he’s cold. Most of all, he has secrets.
Avery is where the magical realism comes in. Just a little bit. To me, Avery is living in a very different reality. I won’t go into that too much since SPOILERS, but his state of being is something I relate to personally. It’s something I’m sure a good amount of people relate to.
Characters need layers because people have layers. Moriah has a deep hurt of her own, but she’s much more vocal about it. She lashes out. Avery has a deep hurt too, but he holds it inside. He keeps it hidden.
They say opposites attract, and I tend to agree. So, I wrote a story about a girl and a boy, both broken in their own way. I take them on a journey of healing because we all need healing. And love. That’s why I wrote it.
I hope this story warms your heart as it did mine.
