Review: The Moon and More

You know how some authors manage to just sound like teenagers, even though they're technically grown-ups and may even have young children of their own?

Sarah Dessen is one of those authors.

(Shoot, she's even more hip than me at some points. I didn't know what a "roach" was the first time I read Lock & Key. You can stop laughing at me any time now.)

I'm also so sad that as far as I know, there's no news about a new Dessen novel coming out any time soon. Can anyone confirm or deny this, Internet?

The Moon and More revolves around Emaline and the summer between her senior year of high school and freshman year of college. She lives in a small tourist town called Colby with her mom, stepdad, and stepsisters, and works at Colby Realty along with her boyfriend, Luke. Luke and Emaline have been dating for most of high school, and they're at a pretty comfortable stage in their relationship.

That all changes when the summer crowd arrives.

One of the new arrivals to Colby is Emaline's estranged father, Joel, who brings along her half-brother Benji. Joel tells Emaline that he's getting divorced from her stepmother, Leah, and that he and Benji are in Colby to sell a deceased relative's old house before finalizing the divorce at the end of the summer. Emaline's not exactly overwhelmed with joy to see her father. They didn't even talk until she was ten, and ever since then they've really only corresponded about school and college. Joel knows Emaline's smart, so he promised to pay her tuition for Columbia if she got in, which she did. He had to rescind that offer, however, leaving Emaline "stuck" going to the local school, East U, on a full ride.

The other new arrival is a relatively famous documentarian, Ivy, and her assistant, Theo. They're in Colby to make a film about Clyde Conaway, a local man who used to be a promising artist a couple of decades ago until he quit it all and came back to Colby. This news shocks Emaline, who simply knows Clyde as the man who runs the Washroom, a combination Laundromat and diner.

Theo is exciting and excitable, a boy who loves planning Grand Gestures and hopes to use his connections with Ivy and Clyde to spur him onto his own greatness one day. Both he and Emaline's father try to encourage her to shoot higher than she's aiming, but she doesn't think she wants the kind of acclaim they're insisting is the only true marker of success.

The Moon and More shows how one summer, with all its twists and turns, can really change your future.

Personally, I really loved this novel. Dessen sets all of her stories in and around the area of Colby, so there are always little references to or appearances from the characters in her former novels, which gives them a sense of community, in my mind. It's nice to sort of catch up with the other characters and see how they've been since their stories ended.

I also found this story incredibly believable. Emaline's doubts and sense of uncertainty over the future probably resonate with every high schooler out there, and every other character is just as well-crafted as she is. The adults sound like adults, the kids sound like kids, and they all have their own little personality quirks that make them memorable. I feel like if it were possible to drive down the coast and find Colby, I'd meet all of these people and instantly be comfortable with them. 

SPOILER ALERT for something a little more in-depth than the overview I gave above: One of the best parts of this novel, at least to me, is that Emaline is single when it finishes. She doesn't go back to Luke or Theo and thus kind of to their respective values. Instead, she goes off to East U and makes new friends, just like she would have had to at Columbia, but she also takes on an internship with Ivy and gets to hang out with Clyde and Morris (her childhood bestie) in New York when they have events. She's struck a balance between Colby and the rest of the world, something everyone was telling her she couldn't do. She's starting to stand on her own two feet, too, and not go along with her father's or Luke's plans. For a novel that's ostensibly about summer romances, this is some pretty bold character development.

Overall, The Moon and More is the kind of novel that you can read in one fell swoop. The humor balances out the sadness, and you can't help but root for Emaline to find her own path by the end of the story. Five stars and a deep craving for shrimpburgers.