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Red Ruby Heart in a Cold Blue Sea

by Morgan Callan Rogers (Goodreads Author)

3.83 of 5 stars 3.83 · rating details · 585 ratings · 144 reviews

A captivating debut, introducing a spirited young heroine coming of age in coastal Maine during the early 1960s.

When her mother disappears during a weekend trip, Florine Gilham's idyllic childhood is turned upside down. Until then she'd been blissfully insulated by the rhythms of family life in small town Maine; watching from the granite cliffs above the sea for her fathe...more

Hardcover, 320 pages

Published January 19th 2012 by Viking Adult (first published August 12th 2010)

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Red Ruby Heart in a Cold Blue Sea by Morgan Callan Rogers

Red Ruby Heart in a Cold Blue Sea: A Novel
by Morgan Callan Rogers (Goodreads Author)

Release date: May 28, 2013

“An authentic page turner…. Rogers [vividly] captures this era of Elvis records and small-town Maine fishing life.” —Down East
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Apr 20, 2013 Holly rated it 4 of 5 stars

I love to take a break and read a novel where you just slide right in the protagonist's life, because the author's style is so easy and natural. Red Ruby Heart in a Cold Blue Sea is that kind of easy and comfortable read.

Florine's mother just disappears on an annual weekend away with a girlfriend, and she's left to navigate the perils of puberty without her young, fun and loving mother. Not to mention being left with the unanswerable question -- did she leave us or was she taken unwillingly? An...more

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Aug 01, 2012 Suzanne rated it 5 of 5 stars

It's been a long time since I loved a novel as much as this one. I loved it most for being true to life. It's not all literary, things don't happen in the way most "coming of age" style novels have you believe they should, but Florine and her family and friends talk in an authentic Maine voice. The dialogue is perfect. If anyone wants an idea what conversations and characters were like growing up in Maine, they could read this book and get a very good idea. I love it that Florine found her own w...more

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Jul 20, 2012 Eccentrika rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: adult, my-favorites

Questo libro mi aveva catturata ancora prima di leggerlo. A partire dalla cover stupenda, proseguendo con un titolo importante che non passa inosservato e una trama profonda, ma che non ho voluto neanche leggere per intero per non rovinarmi la sorpresa. La storia si è dimostrata assolutamente degna di tutte le aspettative, anche di più! La protagonista è Florine, una ragazzina di 12 anni. Il lettore avrà modo di conoscere la sua vita a 360°, vivere a suo fianco nel piccolo paesino di pescatori a...more Questo libro mi aveva catturata ancora prima di leggerlo. A partire dalla cover stupenda, proseguendo con un titolo importante che non passa inosservato e una trama profonda, ma che non ho voluto neanche leggere per intero per non rovinarmi la sorpresa. La storia si è dimostrata assolutamente degna di tutte le aspettative, anche di più! La protagonista è Florine, una ragazzina di 12 anni. Il lettore avrà modo di conoscere la sua vita a 360°, vivere a suo fianco nel piccolo paesino di pescatori abbarbicato in una delle punte costiere del Maine assaporandone l'accogliente atmosfera, affrontare insieme a lei ogni situazione in cui si troverà negli anni a venire, fino a quando di anni ne avrà 18. E' una lettura estremamente intensa. La vita di Florine non sarà facile, nel suo percorso di crescita dovrà affrontare dure prove, il destino sembrerà essersi schierato contro di lei e i lettori si sentiranno coinvolti in tutto e per tutto nella storia soffrendo anche loro assieme alla protagonista. Non è facile recensire un libro come questo, perché la sua trama non ha grandi avventure, suspence o colpi di scena inimmaginabili, ma è uno straordinario scorcio di vita vera, da respirare a pieni polmoni e da assaporare lentamente. I ritmi pacati della storia inducono infatti ad intraprendere la lettura con calma, assorbendo tutte le piacevolissime e vivide descrizioni senza alcuna fretta, come se fossero piccoli e caldi raggi di sole in una giornata invernale. Nonostante i temi trattati abbiano un'importante componente drammatica, non è una storia pesante o deprimente, ma risulta anzi piacevole, e scorrevole; a volte riesce a fare sorridere, a volte fa scivolare via qualche lacrima, ma in generale fa riscoprire la gioia di vivere. Mi sono affezionata a Florine e agli altri personaggi del romanzo in una maniera che non mi capitava da molto tempo, a libro finito avrei voluto leggerne ancora!
"Un cuore rosso rubino in un freddo mare blu", il cui titolo non è affatto messo ad arte come accade spesso, ma ha invece un significato ben preciso e di rilevanza fondamentale, che si riesce a scoprire solo a metà libro, è un romanzo di rara bellezza, eccezionale, emozionante, intenso, delicato, poetico, che scava nell'intimo con una forza sconvolgente.
Il paragone con i romanzi della Flagg, che avevo sentito prima di affrontare la lettura, si sono dimostrati in parte fondati, perché, anche se ovviamente non vi è una somiglianza nel senso stretto del termine, vi sono caratteristiche nello stile di scrittura di Morgan Callan Rogers, specialmente il modo di descrivere realistici e confortevoli scorci di un'America del passato, che si avvicinano molto agli ambienti che si incontrano nel libro "Pomodori verdi fritti al caffè di Whistle Stop", ma con una storia del tutto diversa.
Un'opera d'esordio di una autrice talentuosa che spero ci delizierà in futuro con altri romanzi.(less)

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May 21, 2012 Amy rated it 4 of 5 stars

If you are looking for a perfect summer read pick up a copy of Red Ruby Heart in a Cold Blue Sea by Morgan Callan Rogers, and be transported to the coast of Maine. Set in 1963, when our heroine Florine Gilham is a carefree, if somewhat devilish, twelve year old enjoying her summer with her fisherman father and beautiful young mother, her local friends she has know all her life, and her devoted Grandmother. Florine’s life however, is about to change in unexpected ways when her mother Carlie vanis...more

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Apr 27, 2012 Diane rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Red Ruby Heart in a Cold Blue Sea, is a coming of age, debut novel which takes place in a small sea-side town in Maine, in the 1960s. It's a place where most of the year round residents know each other.

Growing up for most young girls is hard enough, but for Florine Gilham, the story's young protagonist, it is even more painful. The summer she was 12, her mother, Carlie, who worked as a waitress, disappeared during her annual trip with a friend to Crow's Nest Harbor. The lives of Florine, her fat...more

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Dec 06, 2011 Peg rated it 4 of 5 stars

Red Ruby Heart in a Cold Blue Sea by Morgan Callan Rogers. This book was provided to me free-of-charge by GoodReads, FirstReads.

I enjoyed this novel because it was easy to read even though, at times, it was sad. The setting is the 1960s in a small coastal Maine town with only a few year-round residents. Eleven-year-old Florine's mother, Carlie, disappears on a weekend trip with a girlfriend and we soon learn that her disappearance affects not only her family but the entire community. I sympathi...more

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Apr 12, 2012 Dale Harcombe rated it 3 of 5 stars

I debated between 2 and 3 stars for this book.Probably 2 and a half.
The premise of this book is interesting in that Florine, who is very close to her mother Carlie, finds it difficult to cope after she disappears from Florine’s life, leaving no trace of what happened. Florine and her father don’t know if she is dead or just gone off somewhere. Florine’s grief is an intrinsic presence in the novel.
The sense of place is beautifully evoked. Some of the writing and the imagery in this novel is parti...more

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Jun 10, 2012 Sylvia rated it 4 of 5 stars

A painful coming-of-age tale set in coastal Maine rings with a young girl's loss of her mother and the slow process of growing up without the anchor that has defined her female aspirations. At twelve, Florine Gilham's world is filled with the anticipations of adolescence, a dawning awareness of the opposite sex, adoration of her sparkling mother, the security of family routine an a traditional paternal grandmother. All of this predictability falls apart when Carlie Gilham disappears on her annua...more

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Dec 03, 2011 cheryl rated it 4 of 5 stars

I've entered many Goodreads contests and was excited to finally be among the winners! This is a coming-of-age story, set largely in the 60s in a small town in Maine where only a handful of families live year-round. Florine finds herself adrift when her beloved mother, Carlie, disappears while on a girls' weekend away. Florine is left with her father, who loves her but with whom she struggles a bit, and a grandmother who is an institution in the town and is known to all as Grand. We see Carlie st...more I've entered many Goodreads contests and was excited to finally be among the winners! This is a coming-of-age story, set largely in the 60s in a small town in Maine where only a handful of families live year-round. Florine finds herself adrift when her beloved mother, Carlie, disappears while on a girls' weekend away. Florine is left with her father, who loves her but with whom she struggles a bit, and a grandmother who is an institution in the town and is known to all as Grand. We see Carlie struggle to define herself in relation to her town and her family and to grow into her own person while the shadow of her missing mother never fades.

I was reminded of Fannie Flagg's writing while I read this novel (more Daisy Fay and The Miracle Man than her better-known Fried Green Tomatoes), a link that seems to have been made by others out there in the book community. This isn't a light story, there's a lot of sadness here and a lot of struggle, but it still flew by. It was easy to read but in a very pleasurable sense of that phrase -- you drop in and visit with some friends who are there when you pick it back up the next evening. It isn't earth-shattering but it is a very enjoyable read and great for a reader looking for a fictional escape. The residents of The Point are a type of family and I enjoyed sitting at their warm table. Throughout the book, there are references to cooking and especially to bread. At one point, a summertime cottage dweller remarks on how wonderful a basic loaf of fresh bread can be and I think that's a fitting analogy for the book -- no frills, but warmly welcoming. Again, it isn't a story of many joys but there's an undercurrent of love and community that makes it retain hope.

I suppose the ratings folks help me here since I'd be torn b/w 3.5 and 4 stars and the lack of half-stars resolves that dilemma. I think it is also more fair...the novel doesn't ever really pretend to be overly literary (it is fresh bread, not a fancy torte!), but it does its genre well. FYI -- The novel does appear to have come out previously in German with the US edition slated for early 2012 release.
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Jan 31, 2013 Regina Spiker rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: coming-of-age, maine, tragedy, mothers-daughters

Twelve years old and on the edge of puberty, Florine is looking forward to her teen years, when her young, lively mother disappears on her annual getaway. Florine and her father are left to flounder along in the small fishing village in Maine. Even with her stalwart Grand across the road with her comforting arms and her small, close knot of friends, Florine becomes more and more depressed - especially when her father's old flame comes around, full of sympathy and toting delicious meals. When ano...more

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Nov 27, 2012 Mari rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. A suo modo, e a suo tempo, il cuore rosso rubino era tornato da me, e l'avrei tenuto stretto per sempre.

“Urlai tutta la mia rabbia, tristezza e sofferenza contro il cielo d'inverno, con il suo infernale matrimonio di acqua gelida e vento bastardo. "MAMMA!" gridai. "Torna a casa. ADESSO!". Ma l'oceano e le rocce continuavano la loro algida battaglia, ignorandomi. Nella disperazione urlai "Ecco! Adesso ridatemela!", poi lanciai il cuore rosso rubino nel freddo mare blu. E in quel momento Carlie fu...more A suo modo, e a suo tempo, il cuore rosso rubino era tornato da me, e l'avrei tenuto stretto per sempre.

“Urlai tutta la mia rabbia, tristezza e sofferenza contro il cielo d'inverno, con il suo infernale matrimonio di acqua gelida e vento bastardo. "MAMMA!" gridai. "Torna a casa. ADESSO!". Ma l'oceano e le rocce continuavano la loro algida battaglia, ignorandomi. Nella disperazione urlai "Ecco! Adesso ridatemela!", poi lanciai il cuore rosso rubino nel freddo mare blu. E in quel momento Carlie fu con me.”

Florine ha dodici anni quando sua madre Carlie parte per una breve vacanza con la sua amica Patty e scompare.

“L’orologio ticchettò arrivando da agosto fino a settembre. Io passai un sacco di tempo seduta sul grande masso bianco alla fine del nostro vialetto, a guardare la strada, a tendere le orecchie per il suono di un’auto, a cercare di intravedere la sagoma di una piccola donna che scendeva dalla collina, camminando verso di me. Papà comprò una montagna di Gansett e aggiunse la vodka al suo inventario di bevande. Ogni sera, si sedeva davanti alla televisione mentre io mi addormentavo sul divano accanto alla sua poltrona. A un certo punto della serata, mi scuoteva per svegliarmi e io barcollavo fino al letto, dove a volte riuscivo a dormire, a volte no. Ogni minuto in cui ero sveglia, lo passavo a pregare chiunque ci fosse lassù che mia madre tornasse a casa.”

E’ il 1963, siamo a Spruce Point nel Maine e la vita di Florine e di suo padre Leeman non sarà più la stessa. Gli anni passano, le lancette dell’orologio non si possono fermare. Il padre prova a rifarsi una vita con Stella ma Florine non lo accetta e va a vivere dall’altra parte della strada, da sua nonna Grand. Con lei impara a cucinare il pane, a lavorare a maglia. Tra le sue braccia piange, trova consolazione, cresce…
Insieme a lei crescono i suoi amici di sempre, Dottie, Bud, Glen. Finiscono le scuole del paese e iniziano l’avventura del college, consapevoli che prima o poi potrebbero prendere strade diverse e perdersi di vista. Florine non termina il college, la morte di Grand la annienta. Ora è sola. Suo padre ha Stella, Dottie ha il bowling e Bud, di cui è segretamente innamorata, si è fidanzato con Susan…
Florine comincia a lasciare che il tempo prenda il sopravvento su di lei, non fa niente per riportare a galla quel cuore rosso rubino che ha gettato nel mare…

La prima cosa che mi ha colpita di questo libro è stato il titolo stupendo, poi la copertina, semplice ma a tinte forti; le stesse che ho "visto" mentre lo leggevo, perché è raro che capiti ma la sensazione che ho avuto è stata quella di leggere un libro a colori, il blu del mare e del cielo, il verde dei prati e il bianco della neve, il giallo dei limoni che Bud porta a Florine. Così come ho sentito l’odore del pane appena sfornato o quello dei biscotti di Grand.
Un libro che non può non piacere, è doloroso, ma anche delicato e pieno d’amore. I personaggi, anche quelli che apparentemente dovrebbero risultare antipatici come Stella (che di antipatico non ha nulla, anzi…), in un modo o nell’altro ti entrano nel cuore, non sembrano studiati a tavolino per essere personaggi di un libro, sono talmente credibili da sembrare persone vere.
Il Maine con i suoi colori e la sua gente è protagonista silenzioso di ogni pagina, così come la storia di quegli anni, Kennedy assassinato, la guerra in Vietnam, la musica dei Beatles. E’ stato bello vivere a Spruce Point con loro per qualche giorno!
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Dec 18, 2011 Renee rated it 4 of 5 stars Recommends it for: people looking for a good, tear-jerker story

Recommended to Renee by: First Reads

Shelves: first-reads

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. Red Ruby Heart in a Cold Blue Sea by Morgan Callan Rogers. This book was provided to me free-of-charge by Penguin Canada through the GoodReads, FirstReads Giveaway. Thanks! :)

Overall, I really enjoyed reading this book. I was completely engaged throughout and could visualize the story as it unfolded. I found the main character charming and her actions and thoughts realistic given the context of her life circumstances. I would describe the story as bittersweet, but sometimes I found the drama ove...more

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Feb 26, 2012 Melissa Acuna rated it 4 of 5 stars

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

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Jan 29, 2013 Stacy rated it 4 of 5 stars

Actually 4.5 stars. It moved me and I lost myself in the story. Especially because Florine was such a real and likable character. You can't help but find yourself rooting for her---for her happiness and for something good to happen! With each tragedy, I felt so bad for her. I felt like all the things that happened to her were just too much--- but not in a fed up way, but in a way that you really feel like she's real and you can't bear that there's something more for her to have to handle. I thin...more

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Jan 26, 2012 Jaime Boler rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: mobile-press

I am reviewing the new novel Red Ruby Heart in a Cold Blue Sea by Morgan Callan Rogers for the Mobile Press-Register. Red Ruby Heart in a Cold Blue Sea is a heartfelt debut. Rogers gives us a coming-of-age tale set in 1960s Maine. Florine Gilham is an unforgettable character, and I laughed with her and cried with her. So will you. Florine reminded me so much of Fannie Flagg’s Daisy Fay Harper, the main character in her novel, Daisy Fay and the Miracle Man (also known as Coming Attractions). I so...more

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May 07, 2012 Jill rated it 4 of 5 stars

I loved the title and the setting of the book, and I thought the imagery, from the red glass to the ocean rocks, was really effective. I love the part of Maine where this was set.

I am not sure if the story is really coming of age, or if it's really a look at how we lose people, one way and another, and in losing people sometimes find ourselves.

The characterization is well done, and Florine is a piece of every girl in one way and another. Sometimes I wanted her to be less direct, but I think th...more

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Feb 04, 2012 Lydia Presley rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2012, coming-of-age, fiction, contemporary

Original review posted here

This book charmed the heck outta me. Right away, while reading a description of a time long past, a coast I’d never seen, and a girl and her mother making a spontaneous trip, I fell in love. Red Ruby Heart in a Cold Blue Sea is the perfect coming-of-age story for an older generation of women, and for the younger generation as well so they can get a glimpse of what life was like.

Here’s what I love the most about this captivating little story. There are no neat endings,...more

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Aug 24, 2012 Lee rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Twelve year old Florine Gilham lives in coastal Maine in the early 1960's with her small but happy family. Her much adored mother, Corie, is on an annual getaway weekend with a friend when she disappears without a trace. Florine and her father try to patch up the hole in their lives with help from Grand, her father's mother, and their community. Unable to find closure, living with the small town rumors and not even knowing whether Corie is dead or alive all add to their grief and suffering durin...more

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Jun 20, 2012 Paige rated it 2 of 5 stars

A quick read, perfect for summer. Although it took a while to really get into the book, I thought Red Ruby Heart in a Cold Blue Sea was a great story about the trials and tribulations that Florine faces after her mother's disappearance. The theme of losing those you love was present throughout, however, I still found myself shocked each time Florine lost someone close to her. While there were times when I disagreed with the way Florine treated those around her, I found myself wondering how I wou...more

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Jul 29, 2012 Bunny rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: read-fiction

This took a little close reading for the first chapter or so because of the wide cast, but once I was there, I was there and happy! Roger hands over the Maine coastline and the gritty rather than romantic reality of growing up in such a space. Rogers managed to make me root for but not always like the main character, Florine, and empathize with many of the more minor characters. If you like Coming-of-Age without the fluff and make-believe, daughter/father/step-mother dynamics, and strong landsca...more

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Feb 29, 2012 Diane S. rated it 4 of 5 stars

Florine is 12 when her mother disappears during an annual trip she always too with a friend. Dad can't cope, starts drinking way too much and Florine goes to live down the street with her gran. Loved the character of the grandmother, she reminded me so much of the grandmother I used to have, always ready with a quick hug, or food or a special little treat. This is a wonderful coming of age novel and Florine is a wonderful character. Sh grows up always with the spectral image of her mother in the...more

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Dec 19, 2011 Sally Guillen rated it 4 of 5 stars

I actually thumbed through this book as I was reading another and landed on a page in the middle of the book. The words "hot tuna" stuck out and drew me in.

This books is about a girl named Florine and the turbulent waters she faces in her teenage years. The story mainly begins when Florine's mom, Carlie, goes missing on a trip. The next 6yrs go by with Florine and her three friends: Bud, Glen, and Dottie growing up in The Point. It centers on Florine growing up and dealing with losing her mothe...more

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Mar 05, 2012 Traci Gentile rated it 4 of 5 stars

I could not put this book down! It takes place in Maine and being from New England the author pulled on my heart strings making me slightly homesick. The main character Florine appears to be tough as nails until her mother unexpectedly goes missing. Life only get tougher for the adolescent Florine growing up without a mother and never really knowing what happened to her. This catastrophic event shapes Florine into the tough as nails teenager she shows to the world and the vulerable girl that rea...more

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Apr 12, 2012 Ellen rated it 5 of 5 stars

I rank this with two of my favorite books The Kite Runner and Winter Garden. Rogers' first novel is a story about Florine and her teenage friends growing up in a small fishing village in Maine during the late 50s early 60s. Florine is surrounded by family and friends she dearly loves.....mother, father, Grand, and her closest friends, but she learns too early in life about losing loved ones and how it can shape your life. I love Rogers' writing style.....so many phrases I wanted to underline. Be...more

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Dec 09, 2011 Ann rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: first-reads

This is a quick and enjoyable read. The book's beginning didn't grab my attention right away, but I stuck with it and was soon rewarded with an engaging story. Florine and Grand, in particular, are well-developed and appealing characters and the challenges they face are realistically presented. If you've spent any time in Maine, you'll enjoy the descriptions of coastal scenery and the "down-East" lifestyle, and will love the cover art. The book's ending was, however, a bit too predictable and pe...more

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May 07, 2012 Brenda rated it 5 of 5 stars

Okay, I have a definite bias here because the author is a good friend, but leaving aside the many glasses of wine, laughs and hugs we've shared, this is a great read. It has a real, relatable and above all interesting and cheerworthy young female narrator. Florine is no drooping angst-ridden victim or tortured soul, nor is she a ninja warrior with no sense of humor. Though she has plenty of darkness to combat and in no way are the challenges she faces after her mother's disappearance prettified...more Okay, I have a definite bias here because the author is a good friend, but leaving aside the many glasses of wine, laughs and hugs we've shared, this is a great read. It has a real, relatable and above all interesting and cheerworthy young female narrator. Florine is no drooping angst-ridden victim or tortured soul, nor is she a ninja warrior with no sense of humor. Though she has plenty of darkness to combat and in no way are the challenges she faces after her mother's disappearance prettified or sentimentalized, she faces them with real teenage girl emotions: part volcanic anger; part fear and sadness; part bewilderment and excitement about her own physical and emotional changes as she becomes a woman; part smartass and brass; part compassion as she comes to realize how complicated and vulnerable the human heart is and how tough loving, really loving, someone in all their humanness can be.

The sense of community Rogers builds is equally layered and compassionate and clear-eyed in how it recognizes and allows for the downsides of tight knit small communities--the gossip, the long standing rivalries and grudges, the sense of being under constant scrutiny and judgment--even as it respects the multiple ways being solidly rooted in a particular place and a particular group can provide a young child a granite bedrock of security, tradition and support.

And have I mentioned the witty dialogue? The always respectful, always spot on, yet often funny way she captures Northern New Englanders' dry & wry twists of the tongue (the "cheek by jowl" houses)? The way she avoids caricature even as she clearly conveys there is a distinct Maine "character" and diction? Voice is one of those terms writers and critics like to toss around and I'm lobbing it out there too: this novel has a great voice. The style is clear and direct, not flowery or overwritten but with quick flashes of beauty and insight that surprise and delight, before returning to the solidity of things just as they are. Mainers tend to keep their inner lives inner, and this style recognizes and respects that while still revealing that there is much going on beneath the surface. The waters might appear calm or even simplistic on top, but there are definite undertows.

The plot surprises too. Not because of the big dramatic moments, though there are some of those for sure, but because of how, like life, particularly the inner, volatile life of a teenager, its mood changes frequently and it never lets us get too comfortable with putting a character into "hero" category or "villain" category (the depiction of Leeman/Daddy, for instance) or putting the story into the category of "tragedy" or "mystery," though the mystery of what happened to Carlie, Florine's mother, is definitely a key driving force. But then so are the class issues that roil the seaside town and the issues of how much our families define us, constrain us and inspire us. Not to mention teenage romance.

And the end isn't predictable nor neatly bowed off, something I was extremely grateful for. Too many times lately I find myself leaving the last couple chapters of a novel unread because I know exactly where the novel is going. Or if I do finish the novel, the ending is so neat (and dishonest) I'm left feeling like I can see all the wires being manipulated to line everything up just so.

So a darn good read by a darn good writer. Both of them with ginormous, and honest, hearts.

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Apr 05, 2012 Brittany rated it 3 of 5 stars Recommends it for: Fans of coming-of-age novels

Shelves: fiction, coming-of-age, high-school, literary-fiction

How I Came To Read This Book: Entertainment Weekly reviewed it and I thought it sounded interesting. I ended up being #1 on the library hold list to read it :)

The Plot: Florine is a 'townie' living in a small, Maine fisherman's village / summer resort in the 1960s. When we first meet her, she's a go-with-the-flow preteen with a fun-spirited mom named Carlie and a gruff but fair dad named Leeman. Everyone's lives are rocked however, when Carlie disappears during a weekend trip with a friend, and...more How I Came To Read This Book: Entertainment Weekly reviewed it and I thought it sounded interesting. I ended up being #1 on the library hold list to read it :)

The Plot: Florine is a 'townie' living in a small, Maine fisherman's village / summer resort in the 1960s. When we first meet her, she's a go-with-the-flow preteen with a fun-spirited mom named Carlie and a gruff but fair dad named Leeman. Everyone's lives are rocked however, when Carlie disappears during a weekend trip with a friend, and shows no signs of reappearing. What follows from there is a combination of coming-of-age - Florine goes from age 12 to 18 over the course of the book - and its associated angsty periods alongside dealing with some extreme levels of grief, both over Carlie's disappearance and its ripple effect in the lives of Florine, her friends, and her remaining family.

The Good & The Bad: I really so badly want to give this book four stars because it really is quite good. It's well-written, and balances plot with character and setting quite nicely. It does an excellent job of showing Florine's increasing maturity from a naive, unobservant preteen to a dramatic, impassioned teenager with only mild resolve for her future - although I did feel like the last chunk, when Florine is 18, maybe ages her up a little too much....but I also recognize it was a different era, and the thoughts she was having at 18 were perhaps very normal compared to what your typical high school pending-graduate thinks about. There are many elements of Florine's story that resonated with me, even though she's from a different era and leads an incredibly tragic life compared to the average person - Callan Rogers does a wonderful job at capturing teenage angst and growing up, thrown against this exceptional set of circumstances that colours the typical teenage decisions and reactions to things we all go through. In fact she really reminded me of Lee Fiora, the protagonist of Curtis Sittenfeld's protagonist in Prep. There's so many pieces of this book that I could easily say - I know that person or I know that town, which was awesome, despite the rather dramatic premise.

So why am I giving it three stars? I think when a book is very quality, as this one is, I often fall back to the reading experience - how much did I enjoy reading the book? And when I look at how long it took me to read this book, it's a nudge shorter than some of the other books I've rated a bit higher this year (and in past years). I loved the bite-sized chapters, but I rarely felt compelled to read more than a few of them, in part because admittedly, I was hoping for (and strongly feeling I wouldn't receive) a resolution to Carlie's story, which made it a tad bit harder to be super pressed to read on.

Part of me also feels like the book sort of smacks of first-novel idioms. I took a creative writing course at one point and was given the directive that if I wrote in lots of sex and / or death, I would get a good grade. And that sort of seems to be the rule du jour here - a lot of drama is piled onto Florine, I mean a LOT, and while I appreciated that she didn't full-out have a mental breakdown after any one or even two of the tragic things that happen to her, I also felt like she maybe didn't change as much as someone logically would have in the wake of her life's events. In other words - some of the events felt a little plot-weighted, as opposed to deepening Florine as a character (particularly in relation to her love life encounters in the latter third of the book, since so much of the book points to Bud). I also sort of...disliked Florine. Not in an aggressive hate kind of way, but as much as I could relate to her, I also found her frustratingly steadfast. The resolution of her story - this sort of 'giving up and giving in' was depressing to me. I wanted her to strike out and do more, like Allison in Peyton Place.

The Bottom Line: This really is a very good book, and I look forward to reading more from this author. It's a slow, sticky read - similar to books like Little Altars Everywhere and The Secret Life of Bees so if you dig those sort of stories, you'll like it.

Anything Memorable?: Nope.

60-Book Challenge?: Book #18 in 2012.(less)

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Jan 12, 2012 Kate rated it 3 of 5 stars

I have mixed feelings about this one. It has a lot going for it. It's about a teenage girl struggling with tough circumstances in an everyody-knows-everybody small town, and what I like best about the story is how the main character manages to get so lost in such a tiny place. It's extremely readable, and the characters are vivid and convincing.

On the other hand, [umm, spoiler alert, I guess? Can it be a spoiler when I'm warning you that something doesn't happen, even though you may have been w...more

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Dec 25, 2011 Sandra rated it 4 of 5 stars

What a surprise this small novel was! A first time author with a superb book! That's why I love to read unknown authors and first time novels because you just never know. A story about a twelve year old girl who loses her mother. Her mother just simply disappears. She goes on a yearly vacation with her friend from work and she never comes back from shopping in the small island resort where they are staying. The daughter is devastated and never seems to get her life back on track. A sad novel but...more

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Aug 01, 2012 Sam rated it 4 of 5 stars

Ruby Red Heart in A Cold Blue Sea starts in the 1960's in a small coastal Maine town where everyone knows everyone elses business. When Florine's mother disappears during a weekend trip with a friend, Florines's childhood is turned upside down. With her mother gone, the heart goes out of Florine's life and she and her father struggle with their loss. The story starts when Florine is 12 and takes us through 6 years. Florine has three good friends, Dottie, Bud and Glen who are there for her. Flori...more

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