You Are The Reason My Skye Is Blue- YA

Finalized YA synopsis and details: You Are The Reason My Skye Is Blue by Sarah Jeanne Browne:

"The mortal moon hath her eclipse endured." ~Shakespeare's Sonnet 107

Synopsis: Payton Rose Blakely’s grandfather Mitch was a lawyer who inspired her trajectory along with trauma to prepare her whole life for Harvard Law (of course for eventual grad school not undergrad). They talked about life when she was little before he died and in their talk of morality, she realized, “Doing good makes you feel good.” However, she didn’t know what that good looked like. She struggled with her parents’ divorce, her mom, Vivi’s (short for Paraskevi Paraskevopoulou), alcoholism, and her stepmom, Corelle who considered herself the greatest Life Coach to ever live but ironically had no idea about life and just copied others’ tricks in the trade, trying to force a family. Payton didn’t share it with anyone though, but her true dream was to sing. It took meeting Skye, a stranger running away from human traffickers at a train station, to convince Payton to live for her own song and to find her voice. They found love in a short amount of time teaching Payton that love is beyond reason and made a pinky promise to always be authentic. Skye lost her daughter, Raven. As Payton tried to pen her own tale of a hero to her, Skye left with a message that self-destructed before Payton could follow her, leaving her despondent and desperate for love and not just performing acts of kindness. Payton was swept up in a love triangle when she reconnected with her childhood love, Everard Dean Westwood, whose incandescence and innocence drew her in. They planned to host a suicide prevention ball in memory of his dad Forsyth a firefighter who died by suicide. It was largely suspected it wasn’t just mental health but a feeling of failure for not saving a little girl, Lenore. Everard had his own brush with death. He wanted to climb mountains, eventually Mount Everest. However he first traveled to Morocco where his family is from to check out the High Atlas Mountains. There was an earthquake, and he went into a coma. Payton chose to wait for him, even if he never returned in this life. Payton’s stepbrother, Aonas, was an autistic child perseverating on weather topics where they made their own creatures such as Cyclone Cyclops but he saw through his own third eye with seer-like qualities. Payton’s twin Yvonne who died at birth appeared to transform Payton into singing superhero Paycat who could travel beyond time and space to save lives. Yvonne shot the Arrow of Authenticity into the hearts that needed to be healed with a different take on law vs ethics. But Yvonne couldn’t stay. There was some price to be paid. Meanwhile Grier Yeakley, a little person who detests that people think she’s just a jest and that Payton wants to be the best, runs her life on the basis of rumors. Payton joins Grier’s minions I mean friends, Achu Chatterjee (blessed beyond belief with a lot of chattering), Morticia Dai (with a macabre sense of humor who was also in a band called Endarkenment as a pianist known for always playing her favorite song "Funeral March" by Frédéric Chopin, the third movement of Chopin’s Piano Sonata #2 in B-flat Minor, Opus 35, “Marche funèbre"), and Limbus Finito (someone who goes out on a limb for many but remains in his own limbo). Limbus was just a man slave to Grier, but he wanted to be so much more. This is not just a tale of feminism but finding love in all manners…even if it leads to incredible loss. The Brilliant Road of spiritual authenticity revealed itself to Payton. She had to surrender to find her footing. Every road has its reason, to rise above to unseen brilliance.

Payton’s class list (so far). Dystopian Lit; Encountering the Holocaust through Literature; Fashion Design; Ethnomusicology; Bioethics; Democratic Origins with a focus on Ancient Greece; Global Politics; and Transformative Justice. Some of these are from George School so will get in touch with them at some point.

Co-curricular transcript

Music club

Mock Trial Team

International Affairs club

Honors society

Debate Team

Future Leaders of America

Model United Nations

Musical Theatre

Amnesty International

Vegan Club

And Academic Decathlon

Yeah I know.

There is a Sphinx. Just a warning. You’ll have to get through them too!

Magical realism + prescription/inspiration + exploration of faiths in general + dramatic monologues + literary nonsense + poetic/rhymy + music therapy + dark comedy + motifs - rose, brilliant road, authenticity, heart shaped red balloon, raven, Unseen Brilliance, and more + allusions to certain works in literature + teaching through literature + suicide prevention workshops + themes of grief, resilience, LGBTQ issues, race, gender, education system/elitism, autism, disability, rights in general, and love and romance, and more!

Vivamus, moriendum est