Sparks: A reading response.

                In the book Sparks, Debbie is in love with her best friend Lisa. She watches sitcoms and even puts up with the church in meetings that she attends with Lisa. But Lisa is not interested in girls, and one day Debbie breaks down. Her friend Angela tells her to talk to a girl named Emma and her friend Tim. They love each other but the other one does not know of the others feelings. Emma and Tim have created a new religion, called the Church of Blue. Debbie decides to become who she truly is, and meets the duo in detention. They are hiding out from Heather, a subject of pranks and Tim’s secret admirer. For five dollars, Debbie can learn about the Church of Blue and go on a “holy quest”. Debbie decides to pay the fee. In my opinion, that is the best thing she could have done.

                Both Emma and Tim are interesting and quirky characters that I would love to meet. Unfortunately, they live in Des Moines. Tim is a geek; a majority of people think that he is gay, which was a rumor started by Heather to keep people from liking him. In my opinion, that really doesn’t help you, but love causes some flawed logic. He used to have a drinking problem. Emma is a girl that was called manatee, or sea cow, another fad started by Heather. She had several eating disorders, and she would sleep with people for self esteem. Both have saved each other, and they created bluedaism. The concept is simple; everyone has a spark of blue. Emma uses the Beatles as an example. Solo, their albums were fairly decent, but in Abbey Road, a magical thing happened. This goes back to the saying that I’ve seen in so many books, that “greater than the sum of its parts.”

                Holy quests are goals that Emma and Tim complete. They include playing a love tester machine to entering a teacher’s house. Every time that they complete the list, they create a new one to keep the Church of Blue alive. Debbie gets swept up into this quirky new world and leaves the stereotypical orthodox Christian world. Emma and Tim declare that their next quest will be to get Debbie to Lisa so she can convince her feelings before Lisa’s date with Norman. Soon, it transforms into a quest to rescue Debbie’s backpack, which contains a slip of paper confessing her feelings for Lisa. If Norman sees it, then Debbie will be ostracized among her classmates.

                One thing that I find very interesting is how Debbie compares everything to Full House, a family sitcom. I personally have never seen the show, but it seems to resolve around D.J and Kimmie, and Kim has a secret crush on D.J., like Debbie and Lisa. Debbie comes into the book surrounded by people out of the script, perfect people who never did things they weren’t supposed to do, and if they did they got caught. Afterwards, a lesson was learned and everybody hugged it out. Tim and Emma have plenty of interesting friends, especially at the bowling alley.

                Moira works at the bowling alley. Her quirk is that she was born at the wrong time. When Debbie meets her, Moira is dressed in the attire that a flapper might wear, or a dress from the 1920’s. Moira gets a rush from being in the past. She believes that things were more stylish in the past, and yes, I agree with her. Everything was classier in the past. Moira is not a typical sitcom character. Full House characters don’t work at old retro bowling allies and wish that they were in the past. If I was in this book, I would be Moira. She could be my alter ego, I kid you not.

                Another interesting character is Ramona. She is, in Emma’s words, a bowling alley skank, or a snugglepuppy, which Ramona prefers. She has all the gossip, as long as you have something to trade. The snugglepuppies hang around the alley and kiss random strangers. Some of them even pay for you to kiss them. They all wore skimpy sweaters and large amounts of makeup, while holding unlit cigarettes. I’m not saying I approve of Ramona’s life choices, because I really don’t, but I count her as someone that I might want to meet.

These people won’t appear on sitcoms. That’s why sitcoms are fiction, because not everything turns out perfectly in the end.

That’s just how life works.

Sure, there are many meanings to this book, but I think the true meaning is simple. It’s to get out and enjoy life. Enjoy the new personalities you meet and even appreciate the flaws of the world.

Everyone has a spark of blue.