The Scars We Choose (Book One) - A. Lee Hughes

Author: A. Lee Hughes

Genre: Coming-of-Age, Young Adult

Series: Scars We Choose, #1

Rating: 3.5 stars.

In a Nutshell: A coming-of-age story with ‘scarred’ characters. Beautiful writing. Okay plot. Appealing lead characters. Stereotypical secondary characters. Incomplete narration, to be continued in Book Two.

Story Synopsis:

2013, Louisiana. Thirty-something Scarlett Elizabeth Nell Waverly (who loves to be called “Scarlett” but whose mom insists on calling “Lizzie Nell”) is at her old friend Ms. Pinkie’s place. Ms. Pinkie is an expert practitioner of Haitian Vodou and is helping Scarlett trace her long lost love, Julian. But as she works, she wants to know Scarlett’s backstory.

1986 onwards. Georgia & Florida. From the minute 7-year-old Scarlett bumps into 9-year-old Julian, the two kids have had a bond. But her mom doesn’t approve of her friendship with the biracial boy. Scarlett meets Julian only when she spends her summers at her grandparent’s vacation house in Florida, but despite their limited time together, their connection never dims. As they grow older, the time comes when the two of them have to take some tough decisions, about their individual lives, some dark secrets from the past, and their possible future together. As we know from the 2013 timeline, the two aren’t together. What happened to the young lovers?

The story comes to us mostly in the first person perspective of Scarlett.

Where the book worked for me:

✔ Lyrical writing, almost poetic in its style.

✔ Fairly quick-paced, despite the elaborate descriptions.

✔ Wonderful lead characters in Scarlett and Julian and a couple of secondary characters such as Grandma Nell and Dr. White.

✔ The myriad ways in which the title applies to the story, right from Scarlett’s vitiligo to Julian’s physical scars on his face, to the emotional scars on many of the characters. The title is not just appealing but also apt.

✔ Covers some tough themes such as racial discrimination, toxic parenting, parental abandonment, interracial relationships, bullying, problems with fitting in, and weight-related issues.

✔ The beauty and pain of first love is depicted in an amazing manner. I loved the connection, the banter, and the understanding between Scarlett and Julian.

✔ The story makes good use of its locations, especially that of Pass-a-Grille, Florida.

✔ Surprisingly typo-free and fluid for an indie book. I am pleasantly surprised.

Where the book could have worked better for me:

❌ The modern timeline gets predictable quickly. While seemingly disconnected with the historical timeline at first, by the midway mark, it is amply clear where things are going.

❌ There are far too many jumps in the timeline and things become trickier to remember.

❌ Scarlett and Julian sound the same throughout the story, whether they are seven or in their teens or, in Scarlett’s case, in their early thirties. They don’t grow as the pages turn but sound grown up throughout.

❌ Scarlett talks of feeling electric connections through her body when she first meet Julian. She is 7.5 years old. Say what!??!??!

❌ The secondary characters are complicated but even within their layered personalities, they are stereotypical and their behaviour overly exaggerated at times. Quite a contradiction, this.

❌ The Creole spoken by one of the characters in the 2013 timeline, though adding an authentic feel, is tough to understand and breaks the reading flow.

❌ Things became somewhat dragged and repetitive towards the middle. I started skipping through the content, but around the 65% mark, the story starts progressing again.

The book raises quite a few questions but answers only a few as the story is to be continued in the second volume. I am hence immediately hopping on to Book Two to see if these queries are sorted out, and will edit my review as needed. Had most of my questions been answered in this volume, I would have skipped the second book, but I want answers! And I want a happy ending for Scarlett and Julian.

To be honest, I don’t know why a second book was needed because this is just about 280 pages long, and quite a few scenes are extended. Cutting down on the frivolous elements in this one would have easily made provision for a single, comprehensive 350-400 page novel, which would have been better for the readers.

Anyway, regardless of the complaints, this is still one of the better indie works I have read, especially in terms of its prose. As it is more focussed on writing than plot progression, it will click only if you pick it up at the right time, preferably on a day when you want a more emotional experience than a thrilling one.

⚠ Content Warnings: There is quite a lot of toxic content in the story related to skin colour, medical conditions, weight, and race. Some are due to the characters’ natures and hence have to be tolerated. Others (such as Valerie being fatshamed) are unnecessary.

I received a complimentary copy of this book from the author through ‘Voracious Readers Only’ and these are my honest thoughts about it.

The book is available on KU.

Editing to Add: Book Two was a complete and utter disappointment. Read my review HERE.