Review: The Girl Who Chased the Moon by Sarah Addison Allen

I’ve been so busy editing and mothering lately that it’s not often I’m able to read anything purely for pleasure. Not that editing and mothering aren’t incredibly beautiful and fulfilling each in their own ways, I just haven’t been able to sink into a book without an ulterior motive since before Avery was born. (Looking back I realize I reviewed Kamala Nair’s The Girl in the Garden at the beginning of the month, however that book clearly left me underwhelmed since I can’t remember being satisfied with it as a reading option.) Finding something to represent reading for that “just-a-hobby” reason was like drinking a cool glass of water on a hot, humid day. I literally feel as though my soul has being quenched of thirst.

The Girl Who Chased the Moon is not Sarah Addison Allen’s best novel, but that doesn’t make it awful. I’ll get the bad parts over with quickly: partially cheesy dialogue, semi-cheesy romance, predictable plot and outcome. Done. Moving on.

The Girl Who Chased the Moon contains all the magic and sparkle of Sarah’s previous novels, this time in the form of the sweetness of cake and the glow of young love. Emily Benedict moves to her mother’s hometown following her death. Greeted with cold shoulders and dark glances, Emily has no idea that her mother’s legacy is not one the town is willing to forgive. With her eight-foot tall grandfather choosing to spend more time in his bedroom than explaining her past to Emily, she is forced to fend for herself and find out why Mullaby, and a boy named Win, are so mysterious.

Julia has returned to Mullaby for her own parent’s death. Left with her father’s barbecue restaurant and costly mortgage, Julia counts the days until she can leave again and return to the life she’s created since she left Mullaby when she was a teenager. But fate has a different plan for Julia, and the love of her teenage life refuses to let her go so easily.

Surrounding these two stories are the secrets of Mullaby: the lights that glow in the woods every night, the strange townspeople, the Coffey’s and why they don’t leave the house after sunset, the ever-changing wallpaper in Emily’s mother’s room. Each nugget of mystery is almost as magical as Sarah’s other novels, and just as delicious as the cakes Julia bakes every day and night.

While The Girl Who Chased the Moon is not as effortless as Garden Spells or The Sugar Queen, it’s still a delicate, magical morsel of a read. Part of it feels as though the author was grasping at straws, trying to repeat her earlier success with a carbon-copy type of novel. It’s not as original as her earlier works. Still, I do love Sarah Addison Allen’s hold of magical realism; it’s fantastical without being pure fantasy, and seductive without hitting you over the head with its obviousness. She’s still one of my favorite magical realism authors, and I hope The Peach Keeper is a better representation of her skill.

4 stars

Rozlyn Press Call for Submissions

My small press is at it again, folks. We’re open for submissions of unpublished manuscripts by female fiction novelists. Visit the SUBMISSIONS page for the details. Spread the word and post this on your page!

Peter Pan, Chapter 5 – An island full of hooligans.

“They are forbidden by Peter to look in the least like him, and they wear the skins of the bears slain by themselves, in which they are so round and furry that when they fall they roll. They have therefore become very sure-footed.”
Peter Pan, Chapter 5

Mother-daughter reading of Peter Pan resumed last night, much to Avery’s joy (if by joy I mean utter indifference followed by a nap).

We’re on the island now, and most of chapter five deals with the inhabitants of the Neverland. The lost boys are looking for Peter, the pirates are looking for the lost boys, the redskins are looking for the pirates, the beasts are looking for the redskins, and so on, ad infinitum. Sprinkle in some scary stories about Hook’s hook, and pirate adventures. End with a tragic weeping from the sky, “poor Wendy,” followed by AN ARROW TO THE BOSOM of poor Wendy all thanks to the cantankerous Tink. A sweet feminine fairy she is not, more like a spiteful banshee.

Things are starting to pick up now. We see the burgeoning roots of Hook’s animosity toward Peter, and I had forgotten about the silly crocodile with the tick-tocker in her belly who wants to eat Hook. Lots of childlike suspense in this chapter, what will become of our dear, poor Wendy?

Q&A with Audra Martin D’Aroma

Visit this here website to read a fun Q&A with Audra Martin D’Aroma, author of Rozlyn Press’s upcoming 2012 release, The Galveston Chronicles.

Peter Pan: Chapter 4 – The Psychedelic One

Little Miss Avery was awake for all of Chapter 4 last night, so now in her tiny three-month-old spongy brain she undoubtedly thinks that she’ll be able to fly someday, and survive doing so by taking food from the mouths of birds and manage sleeping while floating on her back. That’s Chapter 4 of Peter Pan in a nutshell. Peter and the kids have flown the coop, literally, and are on their way to the Neverland where they are greeted by PIRATES and so cannot land. When said pirates start shooting at them they scatter and are separated. Poor Wendy is left with Tink, who is furiously jealous of Peter’s attentions toward Wendy (don’t forget, they thimbled in Chapter 3), and so Tink leads Wendy to her doooom, which we will uncover in Chapter 5.

Far less depressing, Chapter 4. A bit trippy instead. Reads like a drug-induced hallucination. Not that I would know.

This picture is from my favorite version of Peter Pan, the 1960 movie starring Mary Martin. Somehow this is the one I was raised on in the 80s and I’m fiercely loyal to my childhood favorites (1985 mini-series of Alice in Wonderland as another example).

Peter Pan: Chapter 3 – Where Wendy becomes a floozy.

Chapter 3 is the lightest installment of Peter Pan thus far, not nearly as macabre or melancholy. Peter comes back to the nursery in search of his shadow. Accompanying him is Tink, a fairy with a lovely figure, I believe the exact word Barrie chose was embonpoint meaning a full, fleshy, curvy bosom. (Dirty old man, Barrie!)

While rooting around for his shadow, finding it, and attempting to attach it back to his person with soap, Peter awakens Wendy and–being the smart lady she is–she determines she can sew Peter’s shadow back on his body. Kneedlepoint ensues, after which, sitting next to Peter on her bed, Wendy tells Peter he may kiss her, if he likes. He doesn’t know what a kiss is, so Wendy shows him, calling it a thimble, and they thimble a few times after that.

I tell you, if Wendy were my daughter I’d ask her just what she was thinking by thimbling a boy who crawled in her window in the middle of the night. Instant grounding, that, and wait till your father finds out. Seriously though, I know there’s some history with Barrie and children and speculation of general creepiness. I certainly hope it’s not true, but I have doubts that this book should be read by young children.

Luckily, Avery was asleep the whole length of Chapter 3, so she won’t get any ideas about sneaking boys into her room.

Booking Through Thursday: Queue

This week, Booking Through Thursday wants to know…

What are you reading now?

Would you recommend it?

And what’s next?

Wellll, I’m currently reading The Galveston Chronicles by Audra Martin D’Aroma. This is Rozlyn Press‘ second book which will be released early 2012. Click the link above for a description. I would definitely recommend it (duh). I’m also reading Peter Pan to my daughter. The Barrie version, not Disney. See my posts below on my thoughts on that one, haha. I’ll be posting about Chapter 3 later today. Not sure what I’ll read next!

Peter Pan: Chapter 2

Last night’s reading of Peter Pan went slightly better than the previous, although this is likely because I was more prepared for how depressing of a book it is. Chapter 2 begins with Peter’s shadow getting trapped in the nursery when he jumps out the window, and Mrs. Darling keeping it and trying to find a time to tell Mr. Darling about it. A week later the opportunity presents itself on the evening of a party. Looking back on that night, Mr. and Mrs. Darling and Nana sit talking about how much they miss the children who, I think, have been taken to Neverland. The story of that night, and how Mr. Darling tricks Michael into taking his medicine, is awful. Mr. Darling pretends to be brave and his children goad him into taking his medicine to prove to Michael that it’s easy; except Mr. Darling only pretends to take it, and the children catch him. In an attempt to deflect, he pours the medicine into Nana’s bowl and tricks her into drinking it. When the children gang up on Mr. Darling for being a real asshat, he drags Nana from the house and chains her up outside. Mr. and Mrs. Darling leave for the party, and this is presumably when Peter Pan comes back for his shadow and whisks the children off to Neverland, only I can’t be sure since that’s in Chapter 3 which we’ll get to tonight.

Slightly less toxic, but still depressing. Mr. Darling is quite a weak man, pressured into tricking his children and then taking his anger at his own deficiencies out on poor Nana. Avery seemed to enjoy it, though she did nod off toward the end. 

But unfortunately Mrs. Darling could not leave it hanging out at the window, it looked so like the washing and lowered the whole tone of the house. She thought of showing it to Mr. Darling, but he was totting up winter great-coats for John and Michael, with a wet towel around his head to keep his brain clear, and it seemed a shame to trouble him; besides, she knew exactly what he would say: “It all comes of having a dog for a nurse.” (10)

 

Peter Pan: Chapter 1 – The time I decided to read to my daughter.

My little Avery Rose is just shy of three months old. My, how the time flies. She’s in school, learning about new colors and textures and people. As a first time mother I feel I’m just a tinch paranoid that if I’m not constantly exposing her to something new, I will somehow fail in the teaching department, and her poor little brain, so much a sponge right now, will not absorb some necessary piece of information and she will fall behind. She’s a smart baby, and it’s my job to keep her that way. Thus, the nightly reading.

Last night I decided it was time to start reading to my little one. Not kids books, but good literarture. Nothing too heavy-handed just yet, but something I would appreciate reading also. I contemplated starting with The Chronicles of Narnia, as they’re sure to be her favorites just like they are mine, but deferred instead for Peter Pan by J.M. Barrie, having never read it myself.

Holy mother, what was I thinking? Perhaps it’s different after the first chapter, but in the beginning Peter Pan is SO NOT a children’s book! So depressing! Mom and Dad aren’t sure if they can afford to keep their children so they count all the pennies it will cost? Don’t forget to deduct the expenses of every illness out there in the world! The language is beautiful, but so ethereal and metaphorical there’s no way I could explain to a toddler, let alone a three month old baby how the kiss that mother has in the corner of her lip is not a real object. It’s a good thing Avery can’t understand a word I say as she’d be sure to ask me why they’re talking about murders and why a boy can climb through a window in the middle of the night!

I am not so sure Peter Pan was a good one to start with. We’ll see how Chapter 2 goes tonight. Oy.

Review: The Girl in the Garden by Kamala Nair

For most of her life Rakhee has locked away a summer of her childhood spent in the hot, dry climate of India. Having harbored this secret from her fiance, The Girl in the Garden is Rakhee’s letter to him as she leaves to confront her past and the lives that intertwine with her own back in India. Deep in the forest behind her ancestral home, a garden with a dark mystery lies shrouded under a canopy of foliage. We are transported to Rakhee’s childhood and the summer she discovered the garden in Kamala Nair’s debut novel.

For a debut, The Girl in the Garden is fairly accomplished, but that is mostly due to the last quarter of the novel. Everything leading up to the end is averagely lukewarm, predictable and uninspired, until Rakhee makes the decision to follow her head and heart instead of her relative’s orders. Her actions deeply affect the lives of her relatives and the novel becomes the dark and  mysteriously lush tale it claims to be.

The Girl in the Garden is a swift read, but it leaves me perplexed as to how I truly feel about it. It’s enjoyable, but doesn’t leave me in awe. With one exception, I could see the plot twists coming from a mile away. The writing is fine, but again, nothing notably unique. I didn’t hate it, but I would be hard-pressed to recommend it to other readers.

3 stars

(I received this novel from the Amazon Vine program.)