Light a candle to chase away the darkness. All Elias Black needs to let go of his bitterness and dark stains on his soul and his name, is a ray of sunshine- Sunny Ray Lower.  It's insta-connection when she sees him for the first time at 8 years of age. when God made him he wasn’t exactly sure what color eyes a boy named Elias Black should have, so he dipped his paintbrush in a few colors and swirled them all together. Had God asked me, I would have told him to make that boy’s eyes black like his name to match the storm cloud that seemed to live on his face.  A beautiful, very thought provoking story about tender love and Pinky promises that hold these two beautiful hearts together. The world pelts them with arrows of anger, hatred, prejudice towards them, but their souls are locked together like the Sun & Moon on their rings. The moon and the sun. The first star-crossed lovers doomed to an eternity of almost.  Love triumphs but at extreme cost !! It's not just a mere coming-of-age story about pubescent love which takes root in a tree house and ends up in a trailer park. No, it's more than that. It's a dialogue that needs to be started about unconditional love amongst Human beings of any gender, race or religion. Could be a pastor's daughter or sheriff's daughter. Could be a rich elite kid or one whos been bumping arpund from foster home to foster home. A girl with a heart of gold & water-colored-by-God eyes. boy .or just simply two boys who fell in love. “You shouldn’t judge a book by its cover.” adults keep parroting this adage to kids but they fall short on walking their own talk sometimes.  4 friends, who face daily challenges growing up. High school bullies, mean girls, class divide, popularity contest, cool kids, outcasts and then there's parties where alcohol dulls their senses and major upheavals happen as a consequence. "My father had forbidden me from being with the person I loved and society had forbidden Brandon from loving the person he wanted to. Life didn’t seem fair. To be honest, the older I grew, the uglier life seemed." I loved the premise, though I'm not a fan of young HS romances, I couldn't put the book down. It's written seamlessly and effortlessly. The language was not unnecessary flowery but was fittingly teenage worthy simplistic. Their young lives had simple problems and easy solutions. There's loads of teenage drama and inconsequential dilemmas, about hooking up with hottest guy, one upping the meanest girl, making other jealous and eating greasy fries at a local shack or showing up at the happening parties by sneaking out at night. Out of all the characters Elias and Sunny are extremely lovable. They are a couple bound together by love but set apart by tragedies of fate “Have you ever wanted something you couldn’t have? Like really wanted it until it ate you up inside?”  In side characters, Brandon touched my heart the most. I cried for him a lot. Beautiful trapped soul just aching to live free. Good story, beautifully penned by Stevie