Emotional overload! Art and Soul by Brittainy C. Cherry

5 poignant stars.

♥ The Blurb ♥

I had always been the invisible art student in high school.
Passed by. Glossed over. Unnoticed.
Now I was Aria Watson… that girl.

After one bad decision, and being labeled a slut, I was no longer unseen. I was the whore. The ignoramus. The tramp.
I would never be invisible again.

Particularly to Levi Myers. He was the odd boy with the beautiful soul who accepted and understood the broken girl inside me.

Falling in love wasn’t the plan. But how could I resist his promises of hope? Of forgiveness? Of a future I had stopped dreaming of?
We were shattered. We were scarred. We were something strange and beautiful.

We were two lost souls holding on to the only thing that could keep us together.

Each other.

 ♥ My Thoughts ♥

I’d like you to excuse me as this review will be a long one. I‘ve so many things to say about this book I can’t reduce it to a few sentences. I’m not gifted enough to do it and still give you all this book’s wonder and magic.
So if you’re looking for some short summary, look the other way because I’m afraid you’re in for a long read.

This book was an unending well of emotions. The waterworks was going at full blast and I finished my read with a red nose and a huge smile. Yes, I’m sad but it’s the good kind of sad, the one that makes you feel alive after an incredible read, filled to the brim with so many thoughts and memories you want to shout: READ IT!
It’s the kind of story that makes you feel every little thing the characters experienced: loneliness, despair, fear, joy, sadness, hope, love…
The writing is incredibly deep and beautiful it makes your soul weep and sing.

Aria is sixteen, soon to be seventeen. She’s living in a loving family with a big brother and two little sisters. Her dad’s a plumber and her mom’s a pediatrician. She is artsy, a painter, knows all about Salvador Dali, Jackson Pollock… But for all her half shaved head, red hair and bright colors she’s been quite invisible at school. Aside her reddish orange haired with a slight OCD of a best friend, Simon, no one knows her name. But after The Mistake, everything change.
When a boy told her she was “cute”, her, the odd girl, she fell for him and, as in Taylor Swift song “gave everything she had to a boy who changed his mind”.

Now, she is pregnant, terrified and alone.
Her pregnancy hits her parents like a bombshell and her family is falling apart as her mom and dad are fighting for the first time in their life. Her dad don’t speak to her anymore or just to scold her, her brother does not know her at school either and her mom tries to take care of everything and everyone, pushed to her limit.

From the girl no one knew existed, Aria is now the school “whore”, bullied, mocked, rejected and insulted. She was so isolated and lost my heart broke each time I read about it.
Her only support, aside Simon, came from a new boy: Levi.

Levi is one of my favorite male characters in all the books I’ve read so far. He is the like of Kyland and Archer (Mia Sheridan), so pure and beautiful inside out.
He is “apart”, an oddity, an oxymoron would tell you this words wizard and violin player. Oxymoron, a word that ” in the end means nothing as both parts of an oxymoron kind of cancel each other.”
Levi’s been raised by his mom in Alabama, in the middle of the woods. His mom is unstable and he’s moved in with his father to rekindle their connection and try to be close again.

Levi truly sees the real Aria when no one does. When he first saw her while feeding the deer in the forest and at her first school day, all I thought about was Birdy’s song “Little Ghost” :

”Little Ghost unlike most you don’t miss a thing, you see the truth.
I walk the halls invisibly,
I climb the walls no one sees me,
No one but you.”

I could go on and on about Levi.
Levi, the charming odd boy everyone loves, even the teachers:

”Where are you from, boy with the violin? “ “Alabama, teacher with the impressive mustache.”

Levi, the professional at air guitar and lip syncing.

Levi, with the bright smile but so sad inside.

”Aria’s eyes were sad, the same way Mom’s always were. The same way mine would be if I didn’t hide it so well. I’d become great at smiles. I hid behind them to make sure no one ever realized how shitty my life was.”

Levi, everything he does is to help someone, shouldering his mom’s, his dad’s, Aria’s burden. But he is so tired inside I was aching for him.

”I was tired of everything, of faking that I was happy at school. I was tired of worrying about if Mom was going to hurt herself because I left her. I was tired of wondering if I would wake up one day and Dad wouldn’t be here anymore. I was tired of my nightmare of a life, and I just wanted to wake up from it all.”

Levi, who wants so bad to be close to his dad he sits in the foyer each night while his dad’s in the living room watching comedies and he laughs alongside him. How sad is that?

Levi and Aria found each other in their loneliness: ”It’s all right, you can be sad with me.”

Aria had such hard choices to make, she had to grow up fast, she had to realize to love someone is sometimes letting him go away to give him a better future.

God, I was a sobbing mess!

But I’ve also been extremely happy to witness the incredible friendship with Simon, the huge strength demonstrated by Aria and Awkward Abigail, both fighting their own battle. I was lucky to read about absolute love and selflessness as Aria decided to make her gift.

Now, I’m sad the journey with these exceptional characters is over. I want to keep them and cherish them a little longer.

I’ve never read a story by this author before but she is now on my favorite list.

Thank you Brittainy Cherry, for writing such wonderful story and thank you, Meredith Walters, for recommending it on your Facebook feed.

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