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A Garota que Bebeu a Lua
Uma fábula sobre aceitação, amor, amadurecimento e o poder da memória. Da autora de O filho da feiticeira, considerado o Livro do Ano pelo Washington Post. Todo ano o povo do Protetorado deixa um bebê como oferenda para a bruxa que vive na floresta, na esperança de que o sacrifício a impeça de aterrorizar sua pequena cidade. Mas Xan, a bruxa da floresta, ao contrário do que eles acreditam, é bondosa. Ela vive em paz com um monstro do pântano muito inteligente e um dragão perfeitamente minúsculo. Todo ano ela resgata o bebê deixado pelos anciãos e o leva em segurança para uma família adotiva em uma das cidades do outro lado da floresta. Durante a longa viagem, quando a comida acaba, Xan alimenta os bebês com luz estelar. Em uma dessas ocasiões, ela acidentalmente oferece a uma menina a luz do luar, dotando-a de uma magia extraordinária. A bruxa então decide criá-la, e a chama de Luna. Conforme o aniversário de 13 anos da menina se aproxima, sua magia começa a aflorar – e pode colocar em perigo ela mesma e todos à sua volta.
359 pages, Kindle Edition
First published August 9, 2016
9839 people are currently reading
147570 people want to read
About the author
Kelly Barnhill
54 books4,237 followersKelly Barnhill is an author and teacher. She won the World Fantasy Award for her novella The Unlicensed Magician, a Parents Choice Gold Award for Iron Hearted Violet, the Charlotte Huck Honor for The Girl Who Drank the Moon, and has been a finalist for the Minnesota Book Award, the Andre Norton award, and the PEN/USA literary prize. She was also a McKnight Artist's Fellowship recipient in Children's Literature. She lives in Minneapolis, Minnesota with her three children and husband. You can chat with her on her blog at www.kellybarnhill.com
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 17,610 reviews
June 9, 2023
4.5
Really enjoyed!
Really enjoyed!
October 26, 2022
=====================================
I avidly read fairy-tales because they are replete with folkloric characters (fairies, goblins, witches, giants, and many more), enchantments ineffable, and mysteries inconceivable! They infallibly cure hearts that have stopped believing in the power of goodness and miracles. Additionally, they attach morals to the plot, if not explicitly but subtly!
Post finishing these magical books, the hearts overflow, with ideas of magic, ambitions of achieving the impossible , and smiles nestled with hope inculcated!
They generally proclaim victory of good over evil, all the killings and cruelty are justified by acts of kindness, and kingdom of love thrives amidst all the treacherous and pernicious surroundings!
And Bingo, for me “The Girl who drank the moon”, ticked all the departments of fantasy steadily!
I am “enmagicked” post reading this incredible magnificent fantasy-piece!
It is an endearing, spell-binding, resplendent fairy-tale bursting with enchantment, moonlight, starlight, a baby dragon, a swamp monster, a good-hearted witch, an innocent playful baby and magic overflowing.
Heroes are flawed who evolve into villains. The villains in the story are overflowing with emotions of humanity and love, they are the saviours of grace.
This divergence from the regular, makes this work “enmagicked”!
############################
There is a Protectorate sitting between a hideous forest and a magnanimous Bog. The Protectorate populace lives in the constant fear of a wicked witch, Xan, who haunts the forest for new-born babies. She allows them to live in peace with the stipulation that they would annually sacrifice a new-born to her. Ironically, Xan turns out to be the hero of the novel, she is the one who is the saviour of all the babies, feeds them on starlight, rescues and mothers them, leaves them with neighbouring loving families of the village. Then we have a selfish Gherland, who is the leader to the Council of the Elders in the Protectorate. Gherland every year leaves a baby into the woods for Xan. This time the rescued baby is accidentally fed with moonlight instead of the starlight by Xan, and the child becomes “enmagicked”!
As the child is growing, Xan realises that the baby is overflowing with magical powers, she names her Luna and decides to look after her and nurture her like a grandmother instead of abandoning her. She finds kinship in her. The story has a loving witch who is the HERO ! The swamp monster is a witty poet, and the playful little dragon imbues the plot with humor and intermittent bouts of laughter. Not revealing much to stay back from spoilers.
############################
There is much more magic to this fanciful, thrilling, compelling fairy-tale. There is obsequiousness coupled with fear, oppression bundled with selfishness and corruption. The ending is very satisfying, inundated with love!
The novel is an exposition of voicing against the powerful, corruption and oppression. It is about building own families and nourishing them with unconditional love. It professes that heroes may be disguised as villains, and the heroes whom we idolise as saviours may be the persecutors!
This book is thematic of kindness and cruelty, hope and despair, magic and menace, loss and tragedy, creating families and sprinkling love among all.
A definite and easy 5-star without an iota of doubt!
Few of my favourite quotes from this book are:
“Sorrow is dangerous.”
“Knowledge is power, but it is a terrible power when it is hoarded and hidden.”
“Just because you don't see something doesn't mean it isn't there. Some of the most wonderful things in the world are invisible. Trusting in invisible things makes them more powerful and wondrous.”
“Everything you see is in the process of making or unmaking or dying or living. Everything is in a state of change.”
“A story can tell the truth...but a story can also lie. Stories can bend and twist and obfuscate. Controlling stories is power indeed.”
“Some of us...choose love over power. Indeed, most of us do.”
“My love isn't divided," she said. "It is multiplied.”
“When you apologize, however, you may begin healing yourself. It is not for us. It is for you. I recommend it.”
“It was wrong not to be curious, it was wrong not to wonder.”
“How many feelings can one heart hold? She looked at her grandmother. At her mother. At the man protecting his family. Infinite, Luna thought. The way the universe is infinite. It is light and dark and endless motion; it is space and time, and space within space, and time within time. And she knew: there is no limit to what the heart can carry.”
I avidly read fairy-tales because they are replete with folkloric characters (fairies, goblins, witches, giants, and many more), enchantments ineffable, and mysteries inconceivable! They infallibly cure hearts that have stopped believing in the power of goodness and miracles. Additionally, they attach morals to the plot, if not explicitly but subtly!
Post finishing these magical books, the hearts overflow, with ideas of magic, ambitions of achieving the impossible , and smiles nestled with hope inculcated!
They generally proclaim victory of good over evil, all the killings and cruelty are justified by acts of kindness, and kingdom of love thrives amidst all the treacherous and pernicious surroundings!
And Bingo, for me “The Girl who drank the moon”, ticked all the departments of fantasy steadily!
I am “enmagicked” post reading this incredible magnificent fantasy-piece!
It is an endearing, spell-binding, resplendent fairy-tale bursting with enchantment, moonlight, starlight, a baby dragon, a swamp monster, a good-hearted witch, an innocent playful baby and magic overflowing.
Heroes are flawed who evolve into villains. The villains in the story are overflowing with emotions of humanity and love, they are the saviours of grace.
This divergence from the regular, makes this work “enmagicked”!
############################
There is a Protectorate sitting between a hideous forest and a magnanimous Bog. The Protectorate populace lives in the constant fear of a wicked witch, Xan, who haunts the forest for new-born babies. She allows them to live in peace with the stipulation that they would annually sacrifice a new-born to her. Ironically, Xan turns out to be the hero of the novel, she is the one who is the saviour of all the babies, feeds them on starlight, rescues and mothers them, leaves them with neighbouring loving families of the village. Then we have a selfish Gherland, who is the leader to the Council of the Elders in the Protectorate. Gherland every year leaves a baby into the woods for Xan. This time the rescued baby is accidentally fed with moonlight instead of the starlight by Xan, and the child becomes “enmagicked”!
As the child is growing, Xan realises that the baby is overflowing with magical powers, she names her Luna and decides to look after her and nurture her like a grandmother instead of abandoning her. She finds kinship in her. The story has a loving witch who is the HERO ! The swamp monster is a witty poet, and the playful little dragon imbues the plot with humor and intermittent bouts of laughter. Not revealing much to stay back from spoilers.
############################
There is much more magic to this fanciful, thrilling, compelling fairy-tale. There is obsequiousness coupled with fear, oppression bundled with selfishness and corruption. The ending is very satisfying, inundated with love!
The novel is an exposition of voicing against the powerful, corruption and oppression. It is about building own families and nourishing them with unconditional love. It professes that heroes may be disguised as villains, and the heroes whom we idolise as saviours may be the persecutors!
This book is thematic of kindness and cruelty, hope and despair, magic and menace, loss and tragedy, creating families and sprinkling love among all.
A definite and easy 5-star without an iota of doubt!
Few of my favourite quotes from this book are:
“Sorrow is dangerous.”
“Knowledge is power, but it is a terrible power when it is hoarded and hidden.”
“Just because you don't see something doesn't mean it isn't there. Some of the most wonderful things in the world are invisible. Trusting in invisible things makes them more powerful and wondrous.”
“Everything you see is in the process of making or unmaking or dying or living. Everything is in a state of change.”
“A story can tell the truth...but a story can also lie. Stories can bend and twist and obfuscate. Controlling stories is power indeed.”
“Some of us...choose love over power. Indeed, most of us do.”
“My love isn't divided," she said. "It is multiplied.”
“When you apologize, however, you may begin healing yourself. It is not for us. It is for you. I recommend it.”
“It was wrong not to be curious, it was wrong not to wonder.”
“How many feelings can one heart hold? She looked at her grandmother. At her mother. At the man protecting his family. Infinite, Luna thought. The way the universe is infinite. It is light and dark and endless motion; it is space and time, and space within space, and time within time. And she knew: there is no limit to what the heart can carry.”
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August 26, 2025
‘Knowledge is power, but it is a terrible power when it is hoarded and hidden.’
With children’s literature, there is a wonderful opportunity not only to entertain but to educate, and to pass on lessons that a young reader may carry in their heart their entire life. The best tend to be the ones where the reading is so enjoyable it isn’t until later in life you realize how impactful the lessons were. The Girl Who Drank the Moon’, the Newbery Medal novel from Kelly Barnhill, is undeniably one of these books. It has become a favorite of mine, and one I love to recommend to young readers at every opportunity. This fantastical story of a young girl gifted with powers who finds herself in a battle that threatens the world against ancient evils who have long oppressed the kingdom is a slow burn of pure poetry and charm that bestows beautiful lessons of love, challenging the status quo, and being true to your beliefs. With a thrilling cast of characters, both human and magical beings, Barnhill has created a magnificent middle-grade read that is as engaging to young readers as it is to adults who wish to feel the flame of resistance warm their hearts in an empowering burst of magical fire.
‘“Once upon a time, something terrifying lived in the woods. Or perhaps the woods were terrifying. Or perhaps the whole world is poisoned with wickedness and lies, and it's best to learn that now.
No, Fyrian, darling. I don't believe that last bit either.’
The set-up touches on the familiar, pulsating with the mythical aesthetics of fairy tales with menacing dark woods and castle spires, making it feel as if it were already passed down through generations. Yet it remains fresh in a way that is frequently surprising and modern. The world here is bleak and life is hard (they call the town the City of Sorrows in case you didn’t catch on), and a witch threatens the kingdom. Yet the elders have discovered they can keep the witch at bay if they sacrifice a child every year to the witch. Yet, as we soon learn, this is a lie with just enough truth to keep the belief thriving. The story keeps them ‘a frightened people, a subdued people, a compliant people.’ The elders have invented the witch and assume the child dies in the forest every year, yet it turns out there is a witch who carries off the children year after year. But instead of devour them, she takes them to new homes in kingdoms beyond the horrid forests and bogs. Each child is brushed with magic, giving them a happy life, yet one year a child feasts on moonlight and becomes ‘enmagicked’ with powers the witch could never anticipate. And so the story of Luna begins.
This is a blissfully complex novel for a middle-grade, one that believes in the reader’s abilities and guides them through a tangle of plot-lines and characters to create a stunning tapestry of themes. Alongside Luna’s story of coming into her magic that was repressed for years (very metaphorical of puberty here) is the story of a boy in the village, Antain, who has failed from his path to being an elder and is horribly scarred across his face. He encountered a woman kept in the prison after she became uncontrollable from having her baby taken away and sacrificed, and her pain is writ forever across the boy’s face when she attacks him with magically created paper cranes. Antain slowly seeing through the veil of lies and corruption in the village is juxtaposed with Luna learning the truth of herself and their stories are quickly headed on a collision course that threatens to upheave the obdurate structures of powers that have kept the City of Sorrows down for decades.
‘A story can tell the truth...but a story can also lie. Stories can bend and twist and obfuscate. Controlling stories is power indeed.’
The most striking of themes is the way rhetoric can either oppress you or set you free. The kingdom is oppressed by lies and held hostage by fear. The appeal to fear is a powerful political force, one that will make people commit atrocities or push others out. We see this every day in political struggles. Meanwhile we have Luna and her friend Glerk, the beast of the bog, who tells of the world as a beautiful place. Glerk, who frequently quotes “the Poet”, who is less a god-figure and more the world itself, shows the world as a unified idea, the poet, the people, the bog, the beast, all as one Being. It is a message of peace and understanding. And in this book we see these two ideologies clash. Rule by fear is a fast track to power whereas Luna is learning power should only be used for good and aid. It is a beautiful lesson and the poetic unraveling of this theme sews it directly into your heart.
‘Everything you see is in the process of making or unmaking or dying or living. Everything is in a state of change.’
This is a fantastic story, one I was so glad to share with my own daughter when we read it together. There are witches, some good but still prone to making mistakes, and bad witches who will eat your happiness. There are dragons, and even the smallest of them may have the biggest heart and destiny. Past and present clash in a glorious narrative that will have you flipping pages late into the evening, rollicking along the flow of Barnhill’s prose. This story reminds you to love, to question and to live. The Girl Who Drank the Moon is magic, pure and simple.
5/5
‘How many feelings can one heart hold? She looked at her grandmother. At her mother. At the man protecting his family. Infinite, Luna thought. The way the universe is infinite. It is light and dark and endless motion; it is space and time, and space within space, and time within time. And she knew: there is no limit to what the heart can carry.’
With children’s literature, there is a wonderful opportunity not only to entertain but to educate, and to pass on lessons that a young reader may carry in their heart their entire life. The best tend to be the ones where the reading is so enjoyable it isn’t until later in life you realize how impactful the lessons were. The Girl Who Drank the Moon’, the Newbery Medal novel from Kelly Barnhill, is undeniably one of these books. It has become a favorite of mine, and one I love to recommend to young readers at every opportunity. This fantastical story of a young girl gifted with powers who finds herself in a battle that threatens the world against ancient evils who have long oppressed the kingdom is a slow burn of pure poetry and charm that bestows beautiful lessons of love, challenging the status quo, and being true to your beliefs. With a thrilling cast of characters, both human and magical beings, Barnhill has created a magnificent middle-grade read that is as engaging to young readers as it is to adults who wish to feel the flame of resistance warm their hearts in an empowering burst of magical fire.
‘“Once upon a time, something terrifying lived in the woods. Or perhaps the woods were terrifying. Or perhaps the whole world is poisoned with wickedness and lies, and it's best to learn that now.
No, Fyrian, darling. I don't believe that last bit either.’
The set-up touches on the familiar, pulsating with the mythical aesthetics of fairy tales with menacing dark woods and castle spires, making it feel as if it were already passed down through generations. Yet it remains fresh in a way that is frequently surprising and modern. The world here is bleak and life is hard (they call the town the City of Sorrows in case you didn’t catch on), and a witch threatens the kingdom. Yet the elders have discovered they can keep the witch at bay if they sacrifice a child every year to the witch. Yet, as we soon learn, this is a lie with just enough truth to keep the belief thriving. The story keeps them ‘a frightened people, a subdued people, a compliant people.’ The elders have invented the witch and assume the child dies in the forest every year, yet it turns out there is a witch who carries off the children year after year. But instead of devour them, she takes them to new homes in kingdoms beyond the horrid forests and bogs. Each child is brushed with magic, giving them a happy life, yet one year a child feasts on moonlight and becomes ‘enmagicked’ with powers the witch could never anticipate. And so the story of Luna begins.
This is a blissfully complex novel for a middle-grade, one that believes in the reader’s abilities and guides them through a tangle of plot-lines and characters to create a stunning tapestry of themes. Alongside Luna’s story of coming into her magic that was repressed for years (very metaphorical of puberty here) is the story of a boy in the village, Antain, who has failed from his path to being an elder and is horribly scarred across his face. He encountered a woman kept in the prison after she became uncontrollable from having her baby taken away and sacrificed, and her pain is writ forever across the boy’s face when she attacks him with magically created paper cranes. Antain slowly seeing through the veil of lies and corruption in the village is juxtaposed with Luna learning the truth of herself and their stories are quickly headed on a collision course that threatens to upheave the obdurate structures of powers that have kept the City of Sorrows down for decades.
‘A story can tell the truth...but a story can also lie. Stories can bend and twist and obfuscate. Controlling stories is power indeed.’
The most striking of themes is the way rhetoric can either oppress you or set you free. The kingdom is oppressed by lies and held hostage by fear. The appeal to fear is a powerful political force, one that will make people commit atrocities or push others out. We see this every day in political struggles. Meanwhile we have Luna and her friend Glerk, the beast of the bog, who tells of the world as a beautiful place. Glerk, who frequently quotes “the Poet”, who is less a god-figure and more the world itself, shows the world as a unified idea, the poet, the people, the bog, the beast, all as one Being. It is a message of peace and understanding. And in this book we see these two ideologies clash. Rule by fear is a fast track to power whereas Luna is learning power should only be used for good and aid. It is a beautiful lesson and the poetic unraveling of this theme sews it directly into your heart.
‘Everything you see is in the process of making or unmaking or dying or living. Everything is in a state of change.’
This is a fantastic story, one I was so glad to share with my own daughter when we read it together. There are witches, some good but still prone to making mistakes, and bad witches who will eat your happiness. There are dragons, and even the smallest of them may have the biggest heart and destiny. Past and present clash in a glorious narrative that will have you flipping pages late into the evening, rollicking along the flow of Barnhill’s prose. This story reminds you to love, to question and to live. The Girl Who Drank the Moon is magic, pure and simple.
5/5
‘How many feelings can one heart hold? She looked at her grandmother. At her mother. At the man protecting his family. Infinite, Luna thought. The way the universe is infinite. It is light and dark and endless motion; it is space and time, and space within space, and time within time. And she knew: there is no limit to what the heart can carry.’
March 19, 2024
I have a new BookTube channel! Come find me at Hello, Bookworm📚🐛
Click here to watch a video review of this book on my (old) channel, From Beginning to Bookend.
The people of the Protectorate leave a baby deep in the forest each year, a sacrificial offering made to a witch to deter her from terrorizing the village. When the witch, Xan, finds the babies, she feeds them starlight, but one year she accidentally pulls light from the moon and enmagicks a baby girl. Xan knows that the baby imbued with moonlight will have extraordinary abilities, so she decides to raise the child. As the child grows, she lacks the skill to control her evermore erratic magic, and her thirteenth birthday approaches - a day when her magic threatens to emerge in full and with dangerous consequences.
The Girl Who Drank the Moon is a shining example of a good ol' fashioned fairy tale, replete with witches and dragons and creatures from the bog, along with enchanted objects, talking animals, and villainous monsters.
The setting is moody and atmospheric, be it the fog-riddled village populated with sorrowful people or the treacherous forest said to have taken the lives of travelers who stumbled into its boiling streams or choked on the foul-smelling fumes spewed from its fissures.
Fog clung to the city walls and cobbled streets like tenacious moss.
At the center of the forest was a small swamp - bubbly, sulfury, and noxious, fed and warmed by an underground, restlessly sleeping volcano and covered with a slick of slime whose color ranged from poison green to lightning blue to blood red, depending on the time of year.
Because this is a multigenerational saga, the cast of characters is relatively large, but each character brings their own quirks and idiosyncrasies to the page, making them easy to differentiate (though pinpointing a "main character" is a bit of a grey area).
The best part of the book - the succulent cherry on top of this decadent treat - is the way magic is used or emerges by accident. Magic is portrayed as being whimsical and sweet, familiar yet fresh. Some forms of magic are playful in their innocence, while other forms rely on the exchange of a sinister currency that is disturbing to read about whenever it's employed.
She transformed a book into a dove and enlivened her pencils and quills so that they stood on their own and performed a complicated dance on the desk.
As [she] ran, each footstep blossomed with iridescent flowers. When she waded into the swamp, the reeds twisted themselves into a boat, and she climbed aboard, floating across the deep red of algae coating the water.
The story is fairly complicated for a middle grade novel and some elements are disquieting; the book is subsequently recommended for a slightly older audience (ages 10 to 14).
With luscious prose, a winding plot, and a charming cast of characters, The Girl Who Drank the Moon makes a proud addition to the list of Newbery Medal winners.
-
This book will likely appeal to fans of The Enchanted Forest Chronicles by Patricia C. Wrede, The Mermaid's Sister by Carrie Anne Noble, or Stardust by Neil Gaiman.
Click here to watch a video review of this book on my (old) channel, From Beginning to Bookend.
The people of the Protectorate leave a baby deep in the forest each year, a sacrificial offering made to a witch to deter her from terrorizing the village. When the witch, Xan, finds the babies, she feeds them starlight, but one year she accidentally pulls light from the moon and enmagicks a baby girl. Xan knows that the baby imbued with moonlight will have extraordinary abilities, so she decides to raise the child. As the child grows, she lacks the skill to control her evermore erratic magic, and her thirteenth birthday approaches - a day when her magic threatens to emerge in full and with dangerous consequences.
The Girl Who Drank the Moon is a shining example of a good ol' fashioned fairy tale, replete with witches and dragons and creatures from the bog, along with enchanted objects, talking animals, and villainous monsters.
The setting is moody and atmospheric, be it the fog-riddled village populated with sorrowful people or the treacherous forest said to have taken the lives of travelers who stumbled into its boiling streams or choked on the foul-smelling fumes spewed from its fissures.
Fog clung to the city walls and cobbled streets like tenacious moss.
At the center of the forest was a small swamp - bubbly, sulfury, and noxious, fed and warmed by an underground, restlessly sleeping volcano and covered with a slick of slime whose color ranged from poison green to lightning blue to blood red, depending on the time of year.
Because this is a multigenerational saga, the cast of characters is relatively large, but each character brings their own quirks and idiosyncrasies to the page, making them easy to differentiate (though pinpointing a "main character" is a bit of a grey area).
The best part of the book - the succulent cherry on top of this decadent treat - is the way magic is used or emerges by accident. Magic is portrayed as being whimsical and sweet, familiar yet fresh. Some forms of magic are playful in their innocence, while other forms rely on the exchange of a sinister currency that is disturbing to read about whenever it's employed.
She transformed a book into a dove and enlivened her pencils and quills so that they stood on their own and performed a complicated dance on the desk.
As [she] ran, each footstep blossomed with iridescent flowers. When she waded into the swamp, the reeds twisted themselves into a boat, and she climbed aboard, floating across the deep red of algae coating the water.
The story is fairly complicated for a middle grade novel and some elements are disquieting; the book is subsequently recommended for a slightly older audience (ages 10 to 14).
With luscious prose, a winding plot, and a charming cast of characters, The Girl Who Drank the Moon makes a proud addition to the list of Newbery Medal winners.
-
This book will likely appeal to fans of The Enchanted Forest Chronicles by Patricia C. Wrede, The Mermaid's Sister by Carrie Anne Noble, or Stardust by Neil Gaiman.
August 31, 2016
Look at that beaut' of a cover guys! How could anyone walk past this in a bookstore and NOT want to read it?! And then the blurb: witches, tiny dragons, swamp monsters, lunar magic...this book had all the ingredients for me to drop everything and just read! Which is why it turned out to be even more disappointing than it would've been without the great expectations...
Oh, where to start?! The first 10% was fabulous. After that:
I'll just divide this review into pros and cons to make it easier for me to keep it organised and easier for you to read it!
The Pros:
- Magic being drawn directly from mother nature.
- There are a lot of strong female characters present.
- You can discover several elements from classic fairy tales such as Hansel and Gretel, and Little Thumbling.
- Glerk, the friendly gross-looking Swamp Monster. Who doesn't want a scary looking monster for a friend? It's the entire reason I'm the proud owner of an Old English Bulldog!
- Fyrian, the tiny naive dragon with ADD. He reminded me of the original Toothless a lot and we 'all' know how much I love him!
The Cons:
- The repetitiveness of the story. One of my Kindle notes on this said:
"If I have to read about Luna's magic seeping out of her pores one more time, I'll eat my fucking sock."
- The magical realism. If I read a fairytale, I want it to be a 100% fairytale and with none of that emotional metaphorical nonsense.
- The length of the book. It could have easily been cut by a 100 pages if you take out all the redundant parts.
-This is supposedly Middle-Grade fiction, but I found it a bit too dark for that at times. Especially in combination with the magical realism. No 10-year-old wants to read about depressed grownups being drowned in magical sorrow. I'm aware that most of the classic myths and fairy tales are also quite dark and have lots of metaphors in them. Yet it's all about being subtle, which wasn't the case in The Girl Who Drank the Moon.
-The male characters are depicted as ignorant simpletons. Which, as a self-proclaimed feminist, shouldn't be that much of a problem *winks*, but I like to see a certain balance between the genders.
-The story tends to drag on and on. I had a hard time ploughing through it at the end.
TL; DR:
The concept is nice. Combining nature with magic and weaving it into a fairy tale is fantastic. Sadly, it was poorly executed in this one. I'm giving it two brownies, meaning it was okay. I'd really like to see a properly edited version some day, though!
Not really recommending it. However, if you're a big fan of magical realism, you might be able to appreciate this book a lot more than I did.
Thanks to Algonquin Young Readers for providing me with a copy via NetGalley in exchange for an honest opinion!
Oh, where to start?! The first 10% was fabulous. After that:
I'll just divide this review into pros and cons to make it easier for me to keep it organised and easier for you to read it!
The Pros:
- Magic being drawn directly from mother nature.
- There are a lot of strong female characters present.
- You can discover several elements from classic fairy tales such as Hansel and Gretel, and Little Thumbling.
- Glerk, the friendly gross-looking Swamp Monster. Who doesn't want a scary looking monster for a friend? It's the entire reason I'm the proud owner of an Old English Bulldog!
- Fyrian, the tiny naive dragon with ADD. He reminded me of the original Toothless a lot and we 'all' know how much I love him!
The Cons:
- The repetitiveness of the story. One of my Kindle notes on this said:
"If I have to read about Luna's magic seeping out of her pores one more time, I'll eat my fucking sock."
- The magical realism. If I read a fairytale, I want it to be a 100% fairytale and with none of that emotional metaphorical nonsense.
- The length of the book. It could have easily been cut by a 100 pages if you take out all the redundant parts.
-This is supposedly Middle-Grade fiction, but I found it a bit too dark for that at times. Especially in combination with the magical realism. No 10-year-old wants to read about depressed grownups being drowned in magical sorrow. I'm aware that most of the classic myths and fairy tales are also quite dark and have lots of metaphors in them. Yet it's all about being subtle, which wasn't the case in The Girl Who Drank the Moon.
-The male characters are depicted as ignorant simpletons. Which, as a self-proclaimed feminist, shouldn't be that much of a problem *winks*, but I like to see a certain balance between the genders.
-The story tends to drag on and on. I had a hard time ploughing through it at the end.
TL; DR:
The concept is nice. Combining nature with magic and weaving it into a fairy tale is fantastic. Sadly, it was poorly executed in this one. I'm giving it two brownies, meaning it was okay. I'd really like to see a properly edited version some day, though!
Not really recommending it. However, if you're a big fan of magical realism, you might be able to appreciate this book a lot more than I did.
Thanks to Algonquin Young Readers for providing me with a copy via NetGalley in exchange for an honest opinion!
April 27, 2016
Stunning language and memorable characters. Worthy of a spot alongside Susan Cooper, Ursula LeGuin, and Lloyd Alexander. The sort of book that makes you believe in magic (and love).
May 18, 2019
Winner of the 2017 Newbery Medal
An Entertainment Weekly Best Middle Grade Book of 2016
A New York Public Library Best Book of 2016
A Chicago Public Library Best Book of 2016
An Amazon Top 20 Best Book of 2016
A Publishers Weekly Best Book of 2016
A School Library Journal Best Book of 2016
Named to KirkusReviews’ Best Books of 2016
2017 Booklist Youth Editors’ Choice
So, this book has won a lot of awards and it is easy to see why. This is a great book for middle school readers who enjoy some fantasy and supernatural elements in their books. Plus, the writing is beautiful, lyrical even at times. It really gives the feel of being in a fairy tale land where every year the people of the Protectorate give up an infant to the witch in the forest. They believe abandoning a child (i.e. sacrificing the baby) will protect them from the *gasp* wicked witch who lives there.
Every year, Xan, rescues the abandoned children in the forest. She is a kind and loving witch. She doesn't understand why the people would leave their infants in the forest. She cuddles them, nourishes them with starlight and finds them new homes with loving families on the other side of the forest. Xan lives with a miniature dragon and a clever swamp monster. She is quite content and one evening she rescues a baby and accidentally gives her moonlight instead of starlight. OOPS! That's a big no-no. So, Xan decides to raise the girl as her own and names her Luna. As Luna draws near her thirteenth birthday and her magic begins to show, things begin to happen....
So obviously there is magic in this book but there was for me also nice messages about loyalty, family and what makes a family. That family can be the family one is born into, but it is also the family we choose, those we let in and share our lives with. It's about learning the truth, coming home, and what is truly magical. This book also has some bittersweet moments because it is also about saying goodbye, about loss, and about grief. What is sorrow? What is sadness? How do we cope with these emotions?
The characters are quirky, like-able - and yes, lovable. A witch raising a child in the woods, what is so magical about that??? Everything! Keep in mind this was written for middle grade readers and it is geared for the age range but don't let that stop you. If you have a middle school reader, this would be a great book to read with your child as there are a lot of relevant issues in this book.
An Entertainment Weekly Best Middle Grade Book of 2016
A New York Public Library Best Book of 2016
A Chicago Public Library Best Book of 2016
An Amazon Top 20 Best Book of 2016
A Publishers Weekly Best Book of 2016
A School Library Journal Best Book of 2016
Named to KirkusReviews’ Best Books of 2016
2017 Booklist Youth Editors’ Choice
So, this book has won a lot of awards and it is easy to see why. This is a great book for middle school readers who enjoy some fantasy and supernatural elements in their books. Plus, the writing is beautiful, lyrical even at times. It really gives the feel of being in a fairy tale land where every year the people of the Protectorate give up an infant to the witch in the forest. They believe abandoning a child (i.e. sacrificing the baby) will protect them from the *gasp* wicked witch who lives there.
Every year, Xan, rescues the abandoned children in the forest. She is a kind and loving witch. She doesn't understand why the people would leave their infants in the forest. She cuddles them, nourishes them with starlight and finds them new homes with loving families on the other side of the forest. Xan lives with a miniature dragon and a clever swamp monster. She is quite content and one evening she rescues a baby and accidentally gives her moonlight instead of starlight. OOPS! That's a big no-no. So, Xan decides to raise the girl as her own and names her Luna. As Luna draws near her thirteenth birthday and her magic begins to show, things begin to happen....
So obviously there is magic in this book but there was for me also nice messages about loyalty, family and what makes a family. That family can be the family one is born into, but it is also the family we choose, those we let in and share our lives with. It's about learning the truth, coming home, and what is truly magical. This book also has some bittersweet moments because it is also about saying goodbye, about loss, and about grief. What is sorrow? What is sadness? How do we cope with these emotions?
The characters are quirky, like-able - and yes, lovable. A witch raising a child in the woods, what is so magical about that??? Everything! Keep in mind this was written for middle grade readers and it is geared for the age range but don't let that stop you. If you have a middle school reader, this would be a great book to read with your child as there are a lot of relevant issues in this book.
September 11, 2020
Update: 3-3.5 stars I really didn’t feel comfortable giving this book 4 stars. I have a lot of friends who LOVED this book and I really wanted to love it too but just couldn’t. I didn’t dislike this book, there was some beautiful writing in it, but I can’t bring myself to rate it any higher.
———
some minor spoilers ahead It started slow for me and I was terrified I was going to not enjoy this book. A lot of my friends recommended it, and all wrote glowing reviews. It sounded right up my alley. I love whimsical tales that leave me in wonder and the first 65% of the book had some breathtaking descriptions including a memorable description of a dragon underbelly the color of a freshly laid egg, however the pace was too slow—13 years passed and nothing happened. I fully expected to give this book a 2.5-3 star rating until the real journey began—once Amun’s started her journey of magical discovery and Xan started her rapid aging, the pacing picked up and a clear clock began to tick towards the climax. The final 35% of the book was a solid 5 star read with a beautiful ending that left a smile on my face.
———
some minor spoilers ahead It started slow for me and I was terrified I was going to not enjoy this book. A lot of my friends recommended it, and all wrote glowing reviews. It sounded right up my alley. I love whimsical tales that leave me in wonder and the first 65% of the book had some breathtaking descriptions including a memorable description of a dragon underbelly the color of a freshly laid egg, however the pace was too slow—13 years passed and nothing happened. I fully expected to give this book a 2.5-3 star rating until the real journey began—once Amun’s started her journey of magical discovery and Xan started her rapid aging, the pacing picked up and a clear clock began to tick towards the climax. The final 35% of the book was a solid 5 star read with a beautiful ending that left a smile on my face.
February 18, 2021
Trochę zbyt chaotyczna jak na literaturę dziecięcą, ale bez dwóch zdań będę do niej wracała!
December 25, 2020
توی دنیای اینقدر جدی و خشن، باید گاهی داستان جنوپری بخونیم که تهش همه چیز خوب و خوش تموم میشه. آدم بدا به سزای عملشون میرسن و دخترای گمشده برمیگردن به آغوش مامانشون.
کاش بچه بودم. یازده ساله مثلا. ۱۱ که شبیه عدد زوجه ولی فرده!
کاش بچه بودم. یازده ساله مثلا. ۱۱ که شبیه عدد زوجه ولی فرده!
September 27, 2017
This is a new favorite book of mine. I love this book. I love Luna and her dragon. I love the witch who feed her moonlight. The story feels so big and it seems there is more to it and behind it. I love the tone of the book and the feeling of magic conveyed to the reader. There are some really horrible things that happen in the village and Sister Igraine is quite a character. I love the resolution of the book and how things conclude. It is so satisfying. I don't want to give anything away, simply read the story as it's worth your time.
I love the prose of this work. It is beautiful and it's like a spindle thread of a spider web that has collected the nights dew and now sparkles like diamonds in the sun. Such a work of beauty. I have so enjoyed reading this book and I will miss being part of it's world. This would be one of my favorite books of 2017 for me. It more than deserves the Newberry award.
This book deals with belonging, of life and death, growing up and loss. It deals with sorrow. It turns all this to magic, to transformation and growth. This is a STORY!
I love the prose of this work. It is beautiful and it's like a spindle thread of a spider web that has collected the nights dew and now sparkles like diamonds in the sun. Such a work of beauty. I have so enjoyed reading this book and I will miss being part of it's world. This would be one of my favorite books of 2017 for me. It more than deserves the Newberry award.
This book deals with belonging, of life and death, growing up and loss. It deals with sorrow. It turns all this to magic, to transformation and growth. This is a STORY!
January 20, 2024
FYI: Middle Grade (MG) and "middle school" are two different things...
Middle Grade = ages 7/8 - 11/12 (elementary school)
Middle school = ages 12-14 (YA readership)
Stop leaving nasty rude comments because you think I'm talking about middle school ages, when I'm talking about elementary school readers. Good grief! I'm not even going to reply with an explanation anymore; I'm just going to delete those uninformed comments.
UPDATE: I have recently been reminded of my loathing of White authors writing dark-skinned characters so the cover can depict a seemingly POC MC. It's all for the diverse book attention. Let POC authors write these books, please. Newbery shouldn't even entertain the thought of awarding White authors writing POC main characters.
Please, when you see a book with a person of color depicted on the cover click over to the author's bio and see if you will be reading and supporting an authentic, diverse Own Voices story.
This book was way too long for Middle Grade, there was too much boring political content, and it was having a huge identity crisis. Some parts read like a great Children's beginner reader chapter book, a lot of it was based on an older character and read like okay YA, and then there were two adults in the story who had their adult thinking added in too often. For such a long book there was very little MG age interesting content.
Many of the scenes were too long and a lot of them were basically the same scene in a different location. It would have been better to write things like, "She felt like she did the day she found the *fill in the blank* when she picked up the book," instead of describing the same sensations and thoughts over, and over, and over again. If these redundant scenes had been taken out, and most of the adult storyline extracted, the book would have been more MG length and a lot more interesting for MG age readers.
Luna, the bog monster, and the tiny dragon were the highlights of the story and more focus should have been on them. This book needed an editor who knows MG inside and out. I was excited to read this book after reading the summary, but ended up being disappointed.
I was approved for an eARC, via Netgalley, in return for an honest review.
Middle Grade = ages 7/8 - 11/12 (elementary school)
Middle school = ages 12-14 (YA readership)
Stop leaving nasty rude comments because you think I'm talking about middle school ages, when I'm talking about elementary school readers. Good grief! I'm not even going to reply with an explanation anymore; I'm just going to delete those uninformed comments.
UPDATE: I have recently been reminded of my loathing of White authors writing dark-skinned characters so the cover can depict a seemingly POC MC. It's all for the diverse book attention. Let POC authors write these books, please. Newbery shouldn't even entertain the thought of awarding White authors writing POC main characters.
Please, when you see a book with a person of color depicted on the cover click over to the author's bio and see if you will be reading and supporting an authentic, diverse Own Voices story.
This book was way too long for Middle Grade, there was too much boring political content, and it was having a huge identity crisis. Some parts read like a great Children's beginner reader chapter book, a lot of it was based on an older character and read like okay YA, and then there were two adults in the story who had their adult thinking added in too often. For such a long book there was very little MG age interesting content.
Many of the scenes were too long and a lot of them were basically the same scene in a different location. It would have been better to write things like, "She felt like she did the day she found the *fill in the blank* when she picked up the book," instead of describing the same sensations and thoughts over, and over, and over again. If these redundant scenes had been taken out, and most of the adult storyline extracted, the book would have been more MG length and a lot more interesting for MG age readers.
Luna, the bog monster, and the tiny dragon were the highlights of the story and more focus should have been on them. This book needed an editor who knows MG inside and out. I was excited to read this book after reading the summary, but ended up being disappointed.
I was approved for an eARC, via Netgalley, in return for an honest review.
June 15, 2023
Such a beautiful tale. 😍
February 24, 2017
Fwew. Finally! It felt like it took me forever to finally get through this. I would rate this somewhere between 3 and 3.5 stars. It's not a bad book, but for a Newbery winner, I was expecting more.
What Worked:
The writing is very pretty. Descriptive, poetic, lyrical...it has all the makings of an old-fashioned fairy tale story.
It has some intriguing characters- a swamp monster who's been around since the beginning of the world, a sorrow eater, a childlike dragon, a magical girl...it has a lot of promise.
What Didn't Work for Me:
This was slow. It's a case of lots of description and showing and not much action actually happening. It's quite passive. Sleepy would be the word I would use to describe the plot. 13 years go by in the book, but hardly anything really...happens. The first 2/3 sets up the events of the last third of the book, constantly hinting at things to come. And then it does come...and everything fits together seamlessly. There's no real tension or showdown or anything to make the reader wonder what the outcome will be. The climax is a bunch of characters finally meeting, the villain losing without a fight, and a natural disaster that doesn't end up threatening any lives or much besides Xan's home. If you like excitement, there isn't much here.
The writing gets repetitive. Ideas such as the bog, magic being locked inside Luna, poetry, etc. are discussed over and over again. "She is here", "Sorrow is dangerous"...I feel like some ideas and themes were beaten to death. Sometimes the description was so...descriptive that I lost interest and went foggy, having to re-read entire pages. This is so full of symbolic imagery and poetic figurative language that the plot gets a big lost in it. Problem is, I didn't always know what it was getting at. What was up with the bog? Is it symbolic for life? Death? Both? All of the paper birds...was that about the Madwoman trying to fly to her child? Why did they cut up Antain's face? Why was Fyrian small for years and suddenly large? Was he linked with Luna? I could have used a bit more concrete information.
Examples: "She was an old woman. She was a girl. She was somewhere in between. She was all of those things at once." Huh?
"In the beginning, there was the bog. And the bog covered the world and the Bog was the world and the world was the Bog." WTF (This is mentioned several times throughout the story. I still don't get it.)
The POV can be a bit confusing. There are a ton of characters- Xan, Glerk, Fyrian, Luna, the Madwoman, Antain, Grand Elder Gherland, Ethyne- that at some point or another become the focus for the omniscient narrator. It's a lot. And when most of these characters come together and start speaking to each other, the pronouns could have been a bit better defined, IMO. There are also short "story" chapters, in some of which I'm not exactly sure who is supposed to be speaking. Some of the characters' musings get off topic and go on for too long. I feel like this could have been about 100 pages shorter cleaned up.
So...This is okay. Not bad, but not award-winning IMO. Also, it's supposedly written with 5th graders in mind. I teach fifth grade language arts, and I don't think most of my kids would "get this" and want to stick with it. It's like a middle grades book that middle grades kids would be bored by. I think that Diana Wynne Jones or Neil Gaiman has written in a similar vein, but better.
What Worked:
The writing is very pretty. Descriptive, poetic, lyrical...it has all the makings of an old-fashioned fairy tale story.
It has some intriguing characters- a swamp monster who's been around since the beginning of the world, a sorrow eater, a childlike dragon, a magical girl...it has a lot of promise.
What Didn't Work for Me:
This was slow. It's a case of lots of description and showing and not much action actually happening. It's quite passive. Sleepy would be the word I would use to describe the plot. 13 years go by in the book, but hardly anything really...happens. The first 2/3 sets up the events of the last third of the book, constantly hinting at things to come. And then it does come...and everything fits together seamlessly. There's no real tension or showdown or anything to make the reader wonder what the outcome will be. The climax is a bunch of characters finally meeting, the villain losing without a fight, and a natural disaster that doesn't end up threatening any lives or much besides Xan's home. If you like excitement, there isn't much here.
The writing gets repetitive. Ideas such as the bog, magic being locked inside Luna, poetry, etc. are discussed over and over again. "She is here", "Sorrow is dangerous"...I feel like some ideas and themes were beaten to death. Sometimes the description was so...descriptive that I lost interest and went foggy, having to re-read entire pages. This is so full of symbolic imagery and poetic figurative language that the plot gets a big lost in it. Problem is, I didn't always know what it was getting at. What was up with the bog? Is it symbolic for life? Death? Both? All of the paper birds...was that about the Madwoman trying to fly to her child? Why did they cut up Antain's face? Why was Fyrian small for years and suddenly large? Was he linked with Luna? I could have used a bit more concrete information.
Examples: "She was an old woman. She was a girl. She was somewhere in between. She was all of those things at once." Huh?
"In the beginning, there was the bog. And the bog covered the world and the Bog was the world and the world was the Bog." WTF (This is mentioned several times throughout the story. I still don't get it.)
The POV can be a bit confusing. There are a ton of characters- Xan, Glerk, Fyrian, Luna, the Madwoman, Antain, Grand Elder Gherland, Ethyne- that at some point or another become the focus for the omniscient narrator. It's a lot. And when most of these characters come together and start speaking to each other, the pronouns could have been a bit better defined, IMO. There are also short "story" chapters, in some of which I'm not exactly sure who is supposed to be speaking. Some of the characters' musings get off topic and go on for too long. I feel like this could have been about 100 pages shorter cleaned up.
So...This is okay. Not bad, but not award-winning IMO. Also, it's supposedly written with 5th graders in mind. I teach fifth grade language arts, and I don't think most of my kids would "get this" and want to stick with it. It's like a middle grades book that middle grades kids would be bored by. I think that Diana Wynne Jones or Neil Gaiman has written in a similar vein, but better.
January 19, 2021
“How many feelings can one heart hold?... Infinite, Luna thought. The way the universe is infinite. It is light and dark and endless motion; it is space and time, and space within space, and time within time. And she knew: there is no limit to what the heart can carry.”
Kelly Barnhill's The Girl Who Drank the Moon is a compelling story about love, healing friendship and magic. It is geared toward middle school readers, but I enjoyed it. It has a fairy tale quality that was never going to be as dark or philosophical or ambiguous as it might have been had it been for general readers. Goodness and love will triumph over evil. That's certain from the beginning, but getting to the end is still fun.
“Everything you see is in the process of making or unmaking or dying or living. Everything is in a state of change.”
Kelly Barnhill's The Girl Who Drank the Moon is a compelling story about love, healing friendship and magic. It is geared toward middle school readers, but I enjoyed it. It has a fairy tale quality that was never going to be as dark or philosophical or ambiguous as it might have been had it been for general readers. Goodness and love will triumph over evil. That's certain from the beginning, but getting to the end is still fun.
“Everything you see is in the process of making or unmaking or dying or living. Everything is in a state of change.”
August 15, 2020
*4.5 e favoritado!
March 1, 2019
4.5 stars
A beautiful, surprisingly complex story. Perhaps it is a little longer with somewhat darker themes than many middle grade books, but that's not necessarily a bad thing. This reminded me in some ways of A Wrinkle in Time -- the author didn't pull any punches when it came to more sensitive subjects like grief and death.
Although this book deals with some pretty heavy topics, there is also humour sprinkled throughout that lightens the tone. I listened to the audible edition, and Christina Moore did a fantastic job with the various voices.
Badass Female Character score: 5/5 -- At its heart, this is a story about the strength of women. From Xan, to Luna, to the women in the village, this book is filled with women and how they use the powers they possess.
A beautiful, surprisingly complex story. Perhaps it is a little longer with somewhat darker themes than many middle grade books, but that's not necessarily a bad thing. This reminded me in some ways of A Wrinkle in Time -- the author didn't pull any punches when it came to more sensitive subjects like grief and death.
Although this book deals with some pretty heavy topics, there is also humour sprinkled throughout that lightens the tone. I listened to the audible edition, and Christina Moore did a fantastic job with the various voices.
Badass Female Character score: 5/5 -- At its heart, this is a story about the strength of women. From Xan, to Luna, to the women in the village, this book is filled with women and how they use the powers they possess.
November 9, 2022
I read THE GIRL WHO DRANK THE MOON by Kelly Barnhill because I want to give a copy to my ten-year-old neice for her birthday. The book is beautiful and poetic, the language is rich, and the characters finely drawn. Even the smallest speaking characters feel real by the end of the book. The paper birds are one of my favorite literary elements ever. I desperately love Flurian, the prolonged-baby dragon. I listened to an audiobook of this book from Recorded Books. The narrator, Christina Moore, performed it beautifully, and I think I probably liked it better than I would have if I had read it.
Barnhill doesn't opt for a straight narrative in this book, but rather tells the story in chapters that both jump around in time and also alternate character perspective. Chapter headings gloss the chapters, but not in a way that illuminates changes in time or narrative lens. In fact, if anything, the glossing can further obfuscate the function of the coming chapter. If I had to guess, I would say Barnhill is trying to build suspense, but all she really does is reduce clarity. The form of this book is confusing, and I'm an adult, seasoned reader.
Clarity is also reduced by a convoluted concept. I'm not exactly sure what Barnhill was try to say with this book. Communicating multiple messages in a single book is fine; that's why we have subplots. She does, in fact, have so many threads, that she drops them and resumes them with some regularity. Unfortunately, Barnhill's many messages fight with each other for the reader's attention. What are the young readers supposed to invest in? Is this a story about family and loyalty? Individuality and conformity? Power and control? Fear and bravery? Generosity and sorrow? Standing up for what's right or getting along? It's impossible to say, because all these themes smother each other or just plain disappear off the page, only to reappear later.
I will still give this book to my niece, but I will tell her that if it confuses her she can come talk to me. If she comes to talk to me, I will give her the advice that she could DNF it. I want her to know early that she doesn't have to finish books that don't do it for her! Nor does she have to like every book she reads, even books that are just her type, even if everyone else likes it, EVEN if it won a Newberry!
Rating 3 stars
Finished October 2022
Recommended for adult readers of fantasy and children readers of fantasy ages 12 or older, or who have access to an adult who can answer questions about the book
TW violence against children, imprisonment, torture, volcano, falling, abandonment, kidnapping
*Follow my Instagram book blog for all my reviews, challenges, and book lists! http://www.instagram.com/donasbooks *
Barnhill doesn't opt for a straight narrative in this book, but rather tells the story in chapters that both jump around in time and also alternate character perspective. Chapter headings gloss the chapters, but not in a way that illuminates changes in time or narrative lens. In fact, if anything, the glossing can further obfuscate the function of the coming chapter. If I had to guess, I would say Barnhill is trying to build suspense, but all she really does is reduce clarity. The form of this book is confusing, and I'm an adult, seasoned reader.
Clarity is also reduced by a convoluted concept. I'm not exactly sure what Barnhill was try to say with this book. Communicating multiple messages in a single book is fine; that's why we have subplots. She does, in fact, have so many threads, that she drops them and resumes them with some regularity. Unfortunately, Barnhill's many messages fight with each other for the reader's attention. What are the young readers supposed to invest in? Is this a story about family and loyalty? Individuality and conformity? Power and control? Fear and bravery? Generosity and sorrow? Standing up for what's right or getting along? It's impossible to say, because all these themes smother each other or just plain disappear off the page, only to reappear later.
I will still give this book to my niece, but I will tell her that if it confuses her she can come talk to me. If she comes to talk to me, I will give her the advice that she could DNF it. I want her to know early that she doesn't have to finish books that don't do it for her! Nor does she have to like every book she reads, even books that are just her type, even if everyone else likes it, EVEN if it won a Newberry!
Rating 3 stars
Finished October 2022
Recommended for adult readers of fantasy and children readers of fantasy ages 12 or older, or who have access to an adult who can answer questions about the book
TW violence against children, imprisonment, torture, volcano, falling, abandonment, kidnapping
*Follow my Instagram book blog for all my reviews, challenges, and book lists! http://www.instagram.com/donasbooks *
February 18, 2017
The beauty of this book begins with its magical title: The Girl Who Drank the Moon.
Luna is enmagicked as a baby by being fed the silvery honeyed moon beams. I was both jealous of that experience and yet felt kinship with it - how often have I felt graced by the gentle silvery radiance of moonlight! Of course, this being a fantasy novel,Luna's magic was more tangible!
The Girl Who Drank the Moon is a fabulous work of fantasy pulling strongly on the art of storytelling and richly imbued with interesting characters and an unusually imaginative setting.
Of course we have the deep, dark forest home to dangers real and imagined.
There is an enormous bog surrounding the Protectorate (ironically named) which poses many dangers to the villagers and from which they eek out a mere subsistence livelihood. But there is also an immense volcanic area surrounding this all with treacherous vents, steaming cauldrons of gasses and seven craters marking the border -it kept putting images of Yellowstone in my mind.
After the beginning event, the story unfolds slowly and it is a leisurely exploration of two separate plot threads. One is the life in the Protectorate where villagers have an appalling tradition of offering a young baby to the witch in the woods. All this happens in the first few pages, so no spoiler here. We meet the young ANTAIN whose uncle is a powerful Elder. We quickly realize ANTAIN is a kind and sensitive soul. We know he will be a good character, perhaps a hero but perhaps just an innocent who in fairy tale fashion will gather goodness to him. His is a wonderfully developed character - much richer than I would have expected.
Naturally we have a witch (or two or three) and Xan, our main character, is an unexpected delight. Loved that she is the antithesis of usual witches. And then there are the unique creatures of the fantasy world: Fyrian, a miniature rainbow colored dragon who is all love and enthusiasm and naïveté - and just wants everyone to get along. Even though he had mysteries about him he provides a kind of childlike delightful humor.
My favorite creature is Glerk, the poetic monster of the Bog who may have five or six legs and a prehensile tail and is long time loyal friend to Xan and protector of Fyrian and young Luna. Glerk , the great poet of the Bog: "In the beginning, there was only Bog, and Bog, and Bog. The Bog was everything, and everything was the Bog.
But the Bog was lonely. It wanted eyes with which to see the world. It wanted a strong back with which to carry itself from place to place. It wanted legs to walk and hands to touch and a mouth that could sing.
And so the Bog created a Body: a great Beast that walked out of the Bog on its own strong boggy legs. The Beast was the Bog and the Bog was the Beast. The Beast lived the Bog and the Bog loved the Beast, just as a person loves the image of himself in a quiet pond of water, and looks upon it with tenderness. The Beasts chest was full of warm and life-giving compassion. He felt the shine of love radiating outward. And the Beast wanted words to explain how he felt. ...He opened his mouth and a poem came out."
This is not a traditional quest story. It's a story about secrets that can do harm, about misguided protection, about young people needing to grow up to be their true self, about the beauty and pain of motherly love, about the cost of sorrow and healing power of hope. It's beautifully told - such gorgeous writing. It radiates love - but it would not be balanced without some villains.
"Time was a tricky thing - as slippery as mud" - a refrain throughout the book. When is it time to tell young people true things, when does protecting them deny them power over their own life, when is it time to teach the important things they need to know to empower them.
It's a beautiful story - perfect as a read aloud/read together for eight to nine year olds, (course I would argue longer but I'm always keen on shared reading for the way discussions can grow with your kids) and certainly independent reading from nine on up. I did shed some tears at the end - a heartwarming read! As my granddaughter said, "Nana, there is a sad part at the end, but don't worry - it's a good kind of sad."
Luna is enmagicked as a baby by being fed the silvery honeyed moon beams. I was both jealous of that experience and yet felt kinship with it - how often have I felt graced by the gentle silvery radiance of moonlight! Of course, this being a fantasy novel,Luna's magic was more tangible!
The Girl Who Drank the Moon is a fabulous work of fantasy pulling strongly on the art of storytelling and richly imbued with interesting characters and an unusually imaginative setting.
Of course we have the deep, dark forest home to dangers real and imagined.
There is an enormous bog surrounding the Protectorate (ironically named) which poses many dangers to the villagers and from which they eek out a mere subsistence livelihood. But there is also an immense volcanic area surrounding this all with treacherous vents, steaming cauldrons of gasses and seven craters marking the border -it kept putting images of Yellowstone in my mind.
After the beginning event, the story unfolds slowly and it is a leisurely exploration of two separate plot threads. One is the life in the Protectorate where villagers have an appalling tradition of offering a young baby to the witch in the woods. All this happens in the first few pages, so no spoiler here. We meet the young ANTAIN whose uncle is a powerful Elder. We quickly realize ANTAIN is a kind and sensitive soul. We know he will be a good character, perhaps a hero but perhaps just an innocent who in fairy tale fashion will gather goodness to him. His is a wonderfully developed character - much richer than I would have expected.
Naturally we have a witch (or two or three) and Xan, our main character, is an unexpected delight. Loved that she is the antithesis of usual witches. And then there are the unique creatures of the fantasy world: Fyrian, a miniature rainbow colored dragon who is all love and enthusiasm and naïveté - and just wants everyone to get along. Even though he had mysteries about him he provides a kind of childlike delightful humor.
My favorite creature is Glerk, the poetic monster of the Bog who may have five or six legs and a prehensile tail and is long time loyal friend to Xan and protector of Fyrian and young Luna. Glerk , the great poet of the Bog: "In the beginning, there was only Bog, and Bog, and Bog. The Bog was everything, and everything was the Bog.
But the Bog was lonely. It wanted eyes with which to see the world. It wanted a strong back with which to carry itself from place to place. It wanted legs to walk and hands to touch and a mouth that could sing.
And so the Bog created a Body: a great Beast that walked out of the Bog on its own strong boggy legs. The Beast was the Bog and the Bog was the Beast. The Beast lived the Bog and the Bog loved the Beast, just as a person loves the image of himself in a quiet pond of water, and looks upon it with tenderness. The Beasts chest was full of warm and life-giving compassion. He felt the shine of love radiating outward. And the Beast wanted words to explain how he felt. ...He opened his mouth and a poem came out."
This is not a traditional quest story. It's a story about secrets that can do harm, about misguided protection, about young people needing to grow up to be their true self, about the beauty and pain of motherly love, about the cost of sorrow and healing power of hope. It's beautifully told - such gorgeous writing. It radiates love - but it would not be balanced without some villains.
"Time was a tricky thing - as slippery as mud" - a refrain throughout the book. When is it time to tell young people true things, when does protecting them deny them power over their own life, when is it time to teach the important things they need to know to empower them.
It's a beautiful story - perfect as a read aloud/read together for eight to nine year olds, (course I would argue longer but I'm always keen on shared reading for the way discussions can grow with your kids) and certainly independent reading from nine on up. I did shed some tears at the end - a heartwarming read! As my granddaughter said, "Nana, there is a sad part at the end, but don't worry - it's a good kind of sad."
March 19, 2017
I've been done with this book for a couple of weeks, and wasn't sure how to write this review. I thought about just throwing a 3 or 4 star rating down and being done with it, but I feel like I owe it to my friends that have similar tastes to be honest.
I wanted to love this book.
The cover was gorgeous.
The writing was gorgeous.
The ending came together perfectly.
I didn't love this book.
I kept pushing through it, hoping that I would have an "AH-HA" moment and fall head over heels in love with it. I finished it, but kinda wish I hadn't wasted my time.
I don't see this as middle grade fiction. To me, it seems more like an adult book with a middle grade character. It's what adults wished middle graders wanted to read. The first 3/4 of the book is slow, sad and repetitive. I was bored.
It has so many elements that I thought I would love: A bog monster, a tiny dragon, and magic from the moon. All while living in a forest.
I wish it had worked for me.
A tiny note for Audible listeners. The narrator for this book is FANTASTIC!
I wanted to love this book.
The cover was gorgeous.
The writing was gorgeous.
The ending came together perfectly.
I didn't love this book.
I kept pushing through it, hoping that I would have an "AH-HA" moment and fall head over heels in love with it. I finished it, but kinda wish I hadn't wasted my time.
I don't see this as middle grade fiction. To me, it seems more like an adult book with a middle grade character. It's what adults wished middle graders wanted to read. The first 3/4 of the book is slow, sad and repetitive. I was bored.
It has so many elements that I thought I would love: A bog monster, a tiny dragon, and magic from the moon. All while living in a forest.
I wish it had worked for me.
A tiny note for Audible listeners. The narrator for this book is FANTASTIC!
November 9, 2024
Cried so much during my flight reading this book that the woman sitting next to me was quite worried and the two air hostesses kept staring at me in case I might call for help.
Who would have thought this magical fantastical middle grade read would make me cry like the world is ending and I am leaving everyone I love. I wasn’t expecting it to be this sad and full of grief. Yes grief. I hope the middle grade readers do not have to cry like me while reading the second half of the book.
The story is about a child “sacrificed” supposedly to a “witch” by the community so that their community stays safe as a tradition to do so when the time comes.
However, with this particular child the story begins as to what actually happens to the babies. Then begins a story of heartbreakingly sad warm story of found family, magic and madness of raising a child with magical abilities. This child doesn’t quite understand this and she grows up under the watchful eyes of a grandmotherly figure, an unclely figure and a friendly figure. The first half is written quite well. The last few chapters too. However, things got a bit repetitive in between which I feel wouldn’t have changed much if not there at all.
If you’re curious why I cried too much, try reading this book. It’s fast paced and quite good. Halt when you reach the last few chapters. It’s quite meaningful and make such a wholesome closure to the story.
I love the writing and the characters too much! They are family now and the author is now one of my auto buy authors!
Who would have thought this magical fantastical middle grade read would make me cry like the world is ending and I am leaving everyone I love. I wasn’t expecting it to be this sad and full of grief. Yes grief. I hope the middle grade readers do not have to cry like me while reading the second half of the book.
The story is about a child “sacrificed” supposedly to a “witch” by the community so that their community stays safe as a tradition to do so when the time comes.
However, with this particular child the story begins as to what actually happens to the babies. Then begins a story of heartbreakingly sad warm story of found family, magic and madness of raising a child with magical abilities. This child doesn’t quite understand this and she grows up under the watchful eyes of a grandmotherly figure, an unclely figure and a friendly figure. The first half is written quite well. The last few chapters too. However, things got a bit repetitive in between which I feel wouldn’t have changed much if not there at all.
If you’re curious why I cried too much, try reading this book. It’s fast paced and quite good. Halt when you reach the last few chapters. It’s quite meaningful and make such a wholesome closure to the story.
I love the writing and the characters too much! They are family now and the author is now one of my auto buy authors!
November 9, 2018
Update: changing my rating from 5 stars to 4.5 stars
October 27, 2021
In a Nutshell: I loved many, many things, but I am still undecided about many, many things. (Two whole days later!)
Story:
As I said, there are plenty of things I loved about the book. But my most favourite of all has to be the characters. The characters are the life of the book. Many of the main characters are carved with such precision that at no point do you question their actions or doubt their intentions. Luna and Xan to the swamp monster Glerk to the “perfectly tiny” dragon Fyrian to the young father Antain and his wife Ethyne, all are impactful. But there are many other characters who leave you thirsting for more on their origin. The mad woman in the Tower being one such intriguing enigma until the end. This is how it goes for most of the secondary characters; there is absolutely no back story provided. So there are many past incidents that go unexplained or ignored in the story. This doesn’t affect comprehension but it affects the experience.
Another enjoyable aspect of the book was the magical elements. From the bubble spells cast by Xan to the flying paper birds to Luna’s out-of-control spells, the magic is such that it will appeal to the target readers perfectly. I loved visualising all the fantastical parts of the book. Imagine threading starlight and moonlight in your fingers and eating it!!! What a lovely thought!
The writing has a very lyrical quality to it. This works both for and against the book. While the beautiful imagery helps in picturing the story better, the pace of the book gets affected by the unnecessarily poetic thoughts. The book gave me mild vibes of Alix E Harrow’s “The Ten Thousand Doors of January”, an equally beautiful book with equally lyrical writing. But there, the story is executed in a much better and even darker way, possibly because it is aimed at a slightly older audience.
What I disliked was just how much information isn’t revealed at all in the book, even after the story reached its logical finale. There are so many questions I still have in my mind, and no clue of how to answer them. A little online research led me to a prequel that Kelly Barnhill had written prior to this book’s release. That prequel helps in answering SOME questions. But,
(1) what about the rest of the pending story arcs?, and
(2) why was the online prequel not a part of the actual book when it helps so much in understanding many key situations better?
Just in case you wish to read the online prequel to this book, you will find them here:
Prequel part 1:
https://ew.com/article/2016/07/13/gir...
Prequel part 2:
https://ew.com/article/2016/07/14/kel...
Overall, I enjoyed the book quite a lot as it suits its target readers well. But I also wanted a lot more from this read. It won't be fair to dock off stars for my high expectations. But I will dock off a star for leaving me with so many unanswered questions and another 0.25 for progressing too slowly at the start. 3.75 it is!
***********************
Join me on the Facebook group, Readers Forever! , for more reviews, book-related discussions and fun.
Story:
The Protectorate is a town filled with sorrow. Every year, on the day of sacrifice, they are compelled to offer their youngest baby as an offering to the witch in the forest. What they don’t know is that the witch, Xan, is a kindly soul who doesn’t understand why the townsfolk leave a baby in the forest every year. She rescues the babes and finds new homes for them in a nearby city. One year, she accidentally feeds an abandoned baby moonlight instead of starlight, thereby “enmagicking” her. She adopts this baby, names her Luna, and sets about keeping her safe from the magical powers surging inside her.
Time goes on and one young father in the protectorate decides that enough is enough as his newborn is chosen as the next sacrifice for the witch. Will he be able to save his abbe? Will Xan be able to convince the townspeople that she isn’t the kind of witch they assume her to be? Who is responsible for this ghastly annual sacrifice?
As I said, there are plenty of things I loved about the book. But my most favourite of all has to be the characters. The characters are the life of the book. Many of the main characters are carved with such precision that at no point do you question their actions or doubt their intentions. Luna and Xan to the swamp monster Glerk to the “perfectly tiny” dragon Fyrian to the young father Antain and his wife Ethyne, all are impactful. But there are many other characters who leave you thirsting for more on their origin. The mad woman in the Tower being one such intriguing enigma until the end. This is how it goes for most of the secondary characters; there is absolutely no back story provided. So there are many past incidents that go unexplained or ignored in the story. This doesn’t affect comprehension but it affects the experience.
Another enjoyable aspect of the book was the magical elements. From the bubble spells cast by Xan to the flying paper birds to Luna’s out-of-control spells, the magic is such that it will appeal to the target readers perfectly. I loved visualising all the fantastical parts of the book. Imagine threading starlight and moonlight in your fingers and eating it!!! What a lovely thought!
The writing has a very lyrical quality to it. This works both for and against the book. While the beautiful imagery helps in picturing the story better, the pace of the book gets affected by the unnecessarily poetic thoughts. The book gave me mild vibes of Alix E Harrow’s “The Ten Thousand Doors of January”, an equally beautiful book with equally lyrical writing. But there, the story is executed in a much better and even darker way, possibly because it is aimed at a slightly older audience.
What I disliked was just how much information isn’t revealed at all in the book, even after the story reached its logical finale. There are so many questions I still have in my mind, and no clue of how to answer them. A little online research led me to a prequel that Kelly Barnhill had written prior to this book’s release. That prequel helps in answering SOME questions. But,
(1) what about the rest of the pending story arcs?, and
(2) why was the online prequel not a part of the actual book when it helps so much in understanding many key situations better?
Just in case you wish to read the online prequel to this book, you will find them here:
Prequel part 1:
https://ew.com/article/2016/07/13/gir...
Prequel part 2:
https://ew.com/article/2016/07/14/kel...
Overall, I enjoyed the book quite a lot as it suits its target readers well. But I also wanted a lot more from this read. It won't be fair to dock off stars for my high expectations. But I will dock off a star for leaving me with so many unanswered questions and another 0.25 for progressing too slowly at the start. 3.75 it is!
***********************
Join me on the Facebook group, Readers Forever! , for more reviews, book-related discussions and fun.
March 24, 2025
Every year, a baby is sacrificed to the witch of the woods. This is done to ensure the people’s safety, or so they say. The Elders have actually made up this sacrifice as a way to reaffirm their authority.
Xan, the witch, has no idea why people leave a baby in the woods every year. But she’s kind enough to save the babies from the dangers that lurk in the woods. She then takes them to another city where they can grow up and live their lives. One day however, something goes wrong. Xan accidentally feeds the baby moonlight, which will give the baby magical powers as she grows up. Realizing her mistake, Xan knows she has no choice but to raise the baby herself. Because there’s nothing more exhausting than having to raise and take care of a magical child.
Antain is the nephew of the Grand Elder. Despite his status, he always finds an excuse not to partake in the yearly sacrifice. The Grand Elder has been protecting him so far, but the other Elders feel it is time to make an example of him.
It’s so easy to fall in love with the characters. Especially those of Xan the witch and the swamp monster.
Xan, the grandmother figure who struggles to fix the many messes Luna makes, while trying to raise her right. She continues to fight her exhaustion to remember something very important about her own past before it’s too late. And everything she does is done with good intentions. But even actions done with good intentions can have severe consequences.
Glerk, the poetic and philosophic swamp monster who offers Luna some very important wisdom in his own way.
Fyrian, the tiny dragon who offers Luna friendship, sings away his fears and let’s be honest: offers us a tiny bit of comic relief.
Antain, the Elder-in-training who dares to question and challenge outdated beliefs and traditions.
The mad woman in the tower who longs to escape from her prison.
Luna serves her purpose in the beginning and develops into an interesting character throughout the story as she grows up. It’s her character arc that’s at the core of this story as her magic awakens and old memories rise to the surface. Still, I honestly wouldn’t have minded had the focus of the story remained a bit longer on Xan and the swamp monster.
The plot takes its time before it really gets going. But once it does, it becomes really hard to put this book down as there are multiple subplots worth exploring. Perhaps a bit too many, but it’s worth it. It’s like a dormant volcano that slowly stretches and stirs as it wakes up from its slumber, the anticipation builds up as the mountain’s distant grumbles grow louder throughout the story. There’s the Elders in the village and Antain’s struggle with the morality of the sacrifices. Xan the witch grasping at her fading memories of when she was young. Luna’s magical awakening. And so much more. The story requires this leisurely pace, as Luna slowly but surely grows up. The story also pulls some emotional strings at the right time. And it’s worth it when all the plot threads merge together.
This is a satisfying middle grade feast that will leave readers hungry for more. Served on a magical platter of creative fantasy with some fairy tale influences, it's generously drizzled with the rich flavors of diverse characters with unique personalities. A pinch of comedy adds a delightful crunch, while a whiff of mystery keeps both us and the characters guessing. There’s also a generous serving of important themes to top it off. Like how love sometimes requires sacrifice. How power corrupts and lies can be weaponized, but the truth can set you free. This is a mouthwatering treat for young readers and fantasy fans. Dinner, as they say, is served.
Xan, the witch, has no idea why people leave a baby in the woods every year. But she’s kind enough to save the babies from the dangers that lurk in the woods. She then takes them to another city where they can grow up and live their lives. One day however, something goes wrong. Xan accidentally feeds the baby moonlight, which will give the baby magical powers as she grows up. Realizing her mistake, Xan knows she has no choice but to raise the baby herself. Because there’s nothing more exhausting than having to raise and take care of a magical child.
Antain is the nephew of the Grand Elder. Despite his status, he always finds an excuse not to partake in the yearly sacrifice. The Grand Elder has been protecting him so far, but the other Elders feel it is time to make an example of him.
It’s so easy to fall in love with the characters. Especially those of Xan the witch and the swamp monster.
Xan, the grandmother figure who struggles to fix the many messes Luna makes, while trying to raise her right. She continues to fight her exhaustion to remember something very important about her own past before it’s too late. And everything she does is done with good intentions. But even actions done with good intentions can have severe consequences.
Glerk, the poetic and philosophic swamp monster who offers Luna some very important wisdom in his own way.
Fyrian, the tiny dragon who offers Luna friendship, sings away his fears and let’s be honest: offers us a tiny bit of comic relief.
Antain, the Elder-in-training who dares to question and challenge outdated beliefs and traditions.
The mad woman in the tower who longs to escape from her prison.
Luna serves her purpose in the beginning and develops into an interesting character throughout the story as she grows up. It’s her character arc that’s at the core of this story as her magic awakens and old memories rise to the surface. Still, I honestly wouldn’t have minded had the focus of the story remained a bit longer on Xan and the swamp monster.
The plot takes its time before it really gets going. But once it does, it becomes really hard to put this book down as there are multiple subplots worth exploring. Perhaps a bit too many, but it’s worth it. It’s like a dormant volcano that slowly stretches and stirs as it wakes up from its slumber, the anticipation builds up as the mountain’s distant grumbles grow louder throughout the story. There’s the Elders in the village and Antain’s struggle with the morality of the sacrifices. Xan the witch grasping at her fading memories of when she was young. Luna’s magical awakening. And so much more. The story requires this leisurely pace, as Luna slowly but surely grows up. The story also pulls some emotional strings at the right time. And it’s worth it when all the plot threads merge together.
This is a satisfying middle grade feast that will leave readers hungry for more. Served on a magical platter of creative fantasy with some fairy tale influences, it's generously drizzled with the rich flavors of diverse characters with unique personalities. A pinch of comedy adds a delightful crunch, while a whiff of mystery keeps both us and the characters guessing. There’s also a generous serving of important themes to top it off. Like how love sometimes requires sacrifice. How power corrupts and lies can be weaponized, but the truth can set you free. This is a mouthwatering treat for young readers and fantasy fans. Dinner, as they say, is served.
Read
June 6, 2017I’m not surprised this won the Newbery, because it is absolutely stunning. Told in a wonderfully mystical narrative, this book is sure to join the ranks of enduring middle grade classics. The story centers around a long held tradition in the Protectorate, that every year the youngest child must be sacrificed to appease the witch in the forest. But right away the reader finds out the the witch, named Xan, is actually kind and makes the yearly trek to the Protectorate to save the babies from dying alone. One day, Xan picks up a baby girl and instead of feeding her starlight she feeds her moonlight, which imbues the child with incredible powers. What follows is an intricate cast of characters that are all affected by Luna, the girl who drank the moon. I loved every word in this book, and I look forward to reading it again and again and again.
–Karina Glaser
from The Best Books We Read In March 2017: http://bookriot.com/2017/04/04/riot-r...
–Karina Glaser
from The Best Books We Read In March 2017: http://bookriot.com/2017/04/04/riot-r...
May 9, 2020
Am I going mad?
It might be the only explanation as to why 'The Girl Who Drank the Moon' has such high ratings. That or I've somehow picked up a different book than what everyone else has read. Because not only did I end up not liking 'The Girl Who Drank the Moon', but I was baffled by it. Dazed and confused. It reads as very amateurish to me, like a first draft. It starts out strong and well written, but then it loses me completely about eighty pages in.
So many fundamental flaws, and storytelling rules that 'The Girl Who Drank the Moon' breaks, and not in a good way:
No one is the main protagonist - certainly not the girl Luna, as the reader is promised; and if she is the protagonist, we barely see her in between all the other nonsense, and she is given no agency of her own, no mind and choice of her own (hell, she's barely conscious throughout a story that supposedly revolves around her and her specialness);
Constant telling and no showing in the writing, which results in a disconnect between the reader and the characters and the "relationships" they have with one another;
Too many subplots and characters who, as time went on, I couldn't care less about (except the mini dragon Fyrian, he's precious, and possibly Glerk the swamp monster) - seriously, if they all died as the volcano Macguffin erupted and evil was released or whatever, I wouldn't have blinked;
A weak "twist" villain who didn't need to be a twist villain, or a villain at all, actually;
An out-of-nowhere romance and marriage and baby for a side character that comes in a ridiculously short amount of time, practically happening off-page;
Almost nothing is developed, least of all the characters;
Plot details - as little a plot as this book has - that appear out of thin air, as if the author was making stuff up as she went on - such as a rather weak "sorrow" illness that is affecting everyone and everything;
Speaking of, there are random, drawn-from-a-hat fantasy elements from the kitchen sink - like a crow who talks solely to Luna, as if she doesn't have enough animal and magical sidekicks, and the witch who raised her, Xan, suddenly turns into different birds halfway through the novel, with no explanation or buildup, and then suddenly there's a tiger villain who isn't actually a tiger but is described like one but it's not clear if it's a literal prowling tiger or what...;
Convenient moments of character unconsciousness and memory loss;
Random powers for Luna, and for other characters who aren't supposed to be magical...I think;
An abrupt, anticlimactic ending.
Etc, etc.
'The Girl Who Drank the Moon' is the book equivalent of a person with ADD. There is so much randomness - including in how the narrative is told - and a lack of focus on each varied point. It keeps jumping from one character and their situation to another, almost forgetting about who should matter the most - the titular girl who drank the moon's magic.
When I say that Luna is given no agency of her own, I mean it. She is manipulated, oppressed and repressed by others, even by the good guys who are supposed to love her, and by some ill-defined, magical destiny. When she was little, her magic was too powerful. It was brought to her by Xan, her adoptive witch grandmother, who accidentally fed her the moon's magic instead of starlight when she was a foundling baby. So Xan basically put a cork on the little girl's powers, to be freed only when she is old enough to know about responsibility and consequences, and how to control herself. All of this was done to Luna while she was magically rendered unconscious and without her expressed consent, but she was five at the time, and too much power is dangerous for one so young.
But the worst part is that this spell leaves Luna as literally an empty shell every time magic is even mentioned in her presence: the very concept of magic is filtered through her. Now she can't know of magic's existence at all, otherwise she's brain dead. (A little odd since she still knows about dragons and swamp creatures who are as old as the world).
Despite this side effect being accidental on old Xan's part, it is kind of horrifying. Principally what this means is that the book's supposed heroine is a blank slate, an unwitting slave to a spell put on her by her "beloved" guardian at a very young age. Even when Luna finds out her gift of drawing maps and places she's never been to, it requires trance work, and she never remembers what she did afterwards. Books about magic are left on shelves in her house (a wee bit careless there, Xan, don't you think?), and reading the titles on the spines is enough to give Luna blackouts, where she doesn't regain her senses until hours later. Foggy memories define her entire life.
It doesn't matter how many times the reader is told about Luna's naughtiness, stubbornness and daring - she has no will of her own. She isn't allowed to have free will; to have control over her own sense of self. Furthering the reader's disconnect with the characters, from the beginning we are told who Luna is (including who her birth mother is), and what she's capable of, and how she might "save the world", as it were - and meanwhile she's completely, forcefully oblivious to who she is, via brainwashing.
Luna is an abused child; she's never free, never herself, and there is no way for her to even know it.
(The audience knowing what a character doesn't throughout their journey is another exasperating storytelling device. Worse when that character's stupidity is forced and isn't their fault.)
I am just so sick of the fantasy and sci fi genres carelessly trampling all over characters' free will, and treating any kind of violation and boundaries of consent so flippantly, even casually, as no big deal. There are too many examples of this mind control trope and it needs to die. If for no other reason than it shows how little the writers actually care about their characters, and it downplays issues, such as abuse and trauma, to nonexistence. With 'The Girl Who Drank the Moon', featuring a female character who's very powerful, but is forced to become a prisoner in her own mind in order to "protect" her and others from her potential - breaking her will and personhood "for her own good" - the closest comparison is to the terrible film adaptations of X-Men's 'Dark Phoenix' saga. Not a good accolade.
For if the writers don't care about certain characters, why should the audience?
While Xan does feel guilty for interfering with Luna's free will at the beginning - she keeps putting the child to sleep - this is forgotten about quickly. The witch would enforce magic on Luna without her consent whenever she is an inconvenience - this is abuse, and Xan is meant to be a good, kind witch! No one in the book faces any consequences for their actions over others, either, even when Luna is made the wiser.
There is no real relationship between Luna and her grandmother, by the way. We are told that they love and care for one another, but we see almost no evidence of this. Because of the huge secret keeping, and Xan being a witch means that magic encompasses her whole life, their dialogue exchanges are short, vague, and stilted, filled with ominous warnings and non-answers to questions. What a healthy family dynamic! Secretive parents and guardians in YA is another cliche I hate.
Xan and Luna's bond seems to be trying to be the heart of the "story", but they don't seem to like each other much. It's frustrating. They lie to each other constantly, and they know this, but nothing comes of it. They're both rude, inconsiderate and irritating people, and I don't care for them as main players.
And do NOT do a drinking game for every time the word "sorrow" is mentioned in this book. In this context, it is an evil, lurking darkness and sadness, and it is one metaphor that is overdone and childish - a child's view of depression - and it's not developed beyond the cardboard basics. No drinking game for every time Luna says "Hush", too, particularly to her random crow friend.
I also don't like how one main character is referred to only as "the madwoman". It's really uncomfortable to read about: there's subtext to consider, and what the reader already knows of the woman and how she has been treated for years. Why does her name have to be unknown until the very end? No reason: for we've always known who she is in relation to other characters. It's for the sake of a mystery plot to this idiot plot. The woman conveniently forgets her own name in her "madness" and captivity, and that's that. What tosh.
I had hoped for feminist themes in 'The Girl Who Drank the Moon' as well. But it seems arbitrary, as underdeveloped female side characters, like a housewife and mother, are turned into strong leaders, giving orders left and right, out of nowhere and with no buildup. Not a lot comes of this, unsurprisingly. It's yet another contrivance. Xan is hardly a positive influence - her incompetence can be excused by her old age, so that's not exactly a problem; it's her personality, and unremarked hypocrisy and how she treats Luna that I don't like. And Luna is an annoying blank slate and pawn with no will of her own. So yeah, disappointing.
Oh crap, I just realised: If Luna wasn't a brainwashed shell of a young girl, she would easily be considered a Mary Sue. Everybody she meets loves and adores her, she is described as a very bright and intelligent kid (despite evidence to the contrary), she achieves everything she sets out to do, like carpentry (another superfluous feature in the book that can be cut out and absolutely nothing would be affected), she has an unusual eye colour, and an unusual birthmark, her dark hair is described as like a starry night, she has "amber skin", she is super special and no one else has powers like her, and her personality flip-flops from boring to annoying.
*sigh*
Nitpick: In chapter 19 there is someone who is only referred to as "the widow woman". Are you serious? That is the most redundant name ever to have gotten past an editor. A widow is already a woman, the male equivalent being widower, so why "the widow woman" and not just "the widow"?
In conclusion: It's a shame, because I'd been looking forward to reading 'The Girl Who Drank the Moon'. The fantasy premise sounded great - an Asian-inspired setting, witches, the moon being magic, a strong, powerful young heroine named Luna, fighting oppression and the patriarchy, the importance of kindness and caring, especially of children, and the promise of no love story. It partly reminded me of 'Sailor Moon' - Luna and her mother even have crescent moon-shaped birthmarks on their foreheads! I should have loved it. Sadly, I can't overlook poor planning and character development, a weak story, the lack of focus on anything, the ADD structure and aimless plot points, and the broken show-don't-tell rule.
What is the point? What is 'The Girl Who Drank the Moon' about? Does the book itself have a clue?
Like with 'I, Coriander', this is an instance of a fantasy tale for children being treated with no care for planning, consistency, attention to detail, or logic. Fantasy is no excuse for making things up on the fly and doing whatever you want regardless of if it makes sense and fits with the story; respect the genre you are writing about.
I know I am in the minority - and I hate to be, despite my not understanding why the book is so popular - but I think that 'The Girl Who Drank the Moon' is overall a boring, confusing, forgettable read. It's as forgettable as the characters are forgetful, and not worth much of anyone's time. There are better, more coherent fantasy novels out there, starring stronger, smarter, and more solid, developed, and genuinely daring female leads worth caring about, who are given freedom and agency in their story.
Final Score: 0.5/5
It might be the only explanation as to why 'The Girl Who Drank the Moon' has such high ratings. That or I've somehow picked up a different book than what everyone else has read. Because not only did I end up not liking 'The Girl Who Drank the Moon', but I was baffled by it. Dazed and confused. It reads as very amateurish to me, like a first draft. It starts out strong and well written, but then it loses me completely about eighty pages in.
So many fundamental flaws, and storytelling rules that 'The Girl Who Drank the Moon' breaks, and not in a good way:
No one is the main protagonist - certainly not the girl Luna, as the reader is promised; and if she is the protagonist, we barely see her in between all the other nonsense, and she is given no agency of her own, no mind and choice of her own (hell, she's barely conscious throughout a story that supposedly revolves around her and her specialness);
Constant telling and no showing in the writing, which results in a disconnect between the reader and the characters and the "relationships" they have with one another;
Too many subplots and characters who, as time went on, I couldn't care less about (except the mini dragon Fyrian, he's precious, and possibly Glerk the swamp monster) - seriously, if they all died as the volcano Macguffin erupted and evil was released or whatever, I wouldn't have blinked;
A weak "twist" villain who didn't need to be a twist villain, or a villain at all, actually;
An out-of-nowhere romance and marriage and baby for a side character that comes in a ridiculously short amount of time, practically happening off-page;
Almost nothing is developed, least of all the characters;
Plot details - as little a plot as this book has - that appear out of thin air, as if the author was making stuff up as she went on - such as a rather weak "sorrow" illness that is affecting everyone and everything;
Speaking of, there are random, drawn-from-a-hat fantasy elements from the kitchen sink - like a crow who talks solely to Luna, as if she doesn't have enough animal and magical sidekicks, and the witch who raised her, Xan, suddenly turns into different birds halfway through the novel, with no explanation or buildup, and then suddenly there's a tiger villain who isn't actually a tiger but is described like one but it's not clear if it's a literal prowling tiger or what...;
Convenient moments of character unconsciousness and memory loss;
Random powers for Luna, and for other characters who aren't supposed to be magical...I think;
An abrupt, anticlimactic ending.
Etc, etc.
'The Girl Who Drank the Moon' is the book equivalent of a person with ADD. There is so much randomness - including in how the narrative is told - and a lack of focus on each varied point. It keeps jumping from one character and their situation to another, almost forgetting about who should matter the most - the titular girl who drank the moon's magic.
When I say that Luna is given no agency of her own, I mean it. She is manipulated, oppressed and repressed by others, even by the good guys who are supposed to love her, and by some ill-defined, magical destiny. When she was little, her magic was too powerful. It was brought to her by Xan, her adoptive witch grandmother, who accidentally fed her the moon's magic instead of starlight when she was a foundling baby. So Xan basically put a cork on the little girl's powers, to be freed only when she is old enough to know about responsibility and consequences, and how to control herself. All of this was done to Luna while she was magically rendered unconscious and without her expressed consent, but she was five at the time, and too much power is dangerous for one so young.
But the worst part is that this spell leaves Luna as literally an empty shell every time magic is even mentioned in her presence: the very concept of magic is filtered through her. Now she can't know of magic's existence at all, otherwise she's brain dead. (A little odd since she still knows about dragons and swamp creatures who are as old as the world).
Despite this side effect being accidental on old Xan's part, it is kind of horrifying. Principally what this means is that the book's supposed heroine is a blank slate, an unwitting slave to a spell put on her by her "beloved" guardian at a very young age. Even when Luna finds out her gift of drawing maps and places she's never been to, it requires trance work, and she never remembers what she did afterwards. Books about magic are left on shelves in her house (a wee bit careless there, Xan, don't you think?), and reading the titles on the spines is enough to give Luna blackouts, where she doesn't regain her senses until hours later. Foggy memories define her entire life.
It doesn't matter how many times the reader is told about Luna's naughtiness, stubbornness and daring - she has no will of her own. She isn't allowed to have free will; to have control over her own sense of self. Furthering the reader's disconnect with the characters, from the beginning we are told who Luna is (including who her birth mother is), and what she's capable of, and how she might "save the world", as it were - and meanwhile she's completely, forcefully oblivious to who she is, via brainwashing.
Luna is an abused child; she's never free, never herself, and there is no way for her to even know it.
(The audience knowing what a character doesn't throughout their journey is another exasperating storytelling device. Worse when that character's stupidity is forced and isn't their fault.)
I am just so sick of the fantasy and sci fi genres carelessly trampling all over characters' free will, and treating any kind of violation and boundaries of consent so flippantly, even casually, as no big deal. There are too many examples of this mind control trope and it needs to die. If for no other reason than it shows how little the writers actually care about their characters, and it downplays issues, such as abuse and trauma, to nonexistence. With 'The Girl Who Drank the Moon', featuring a female character who's very powerful, but is forced to become a prisoner in her own mind in order to "protect" her and others from her potential - breaking her will and personhood "for her own good" - the closest comparison is to the terrible film adaptations of X-Men's 'Dark Phoenix' saga. Not a good accolade.
For if the writers don't care about certain characters, why should the audience?
While Xan does feel guilty for interfering with Luna's free will at the beginning - she keeps putting the child to sleep - this is forgotten about quickly. The witch would enforce magic on Luna without her consent whenever she is an inconvenience - this is abuse, and Xan is meant to be a good, kind witch! No one in the book faces any consequences for their actions over others, either, even when Luna is made the wiser.
There is no real relationship between Luna and her grandmother, by the way. We are told that they love and care for one another, but we see almost no evidence of this. Because of the huge secret keeping, and Xan being a witch means that magic encompasses her whole life, their dialogue exchanges are short, vague, and stilted, filled with ominous warnings and non-answers to questions. What a healthy family dynamic! Secretive parents and guardians in YA is another cliche I hate.
Xan and Luna's bond seems to be trying to be the heart of the "story", but they don't seem to like each other much. It's frustrating. They lie to each other constantly, and they know this, but nothing comes of it. They're both rude, inconsiderate and irritating people, and I don't care for them as main players.
And do NOT do a drinking game for every time the word "sorrow" is mentioned in this book. In this context, it is an evil, lurking darkness and sadness, and it is one metaphor that is overdone and childish - a child's view of depression - and it's not developed beyond the cardboard basics. No drinking game for every time Luna says "Hush", too, particularly to her random crow friend.
I also don't like how one main character is referred to only as "the madwoman". It's really uncomfortable to read about: there's subtext to consider, and what the reader already knows of the woman and how she has been treated for years. Why does her name have to be unknown until the very end? No reason: for we've always known who she is in relation to other characters. It's for the sake of a mystery plot to this idiot plot. The woman conveniently forgets her own name in her "madness" and captivity, and that's that. What tosh.
I had hoped for feminist themes in 'The Girl Who Drank the Moon' as well. But it seems arbitrary, as underdeveloped female side characters, like a housewife and mother, are turned into strong leaders, giving orders left and right, out of nowhere and with no buildup. Not a lot comes of this, unsurprisingly. It's yet another contrivance. Xan is hardly a positive influence - her incompetence can be excused by her old age, so that's not exactly a problem; it's her personality, and unremarked hypocrisy and how she treats Luna that I don't like. And Luna is an annoying blank slate and pawn with no will of her own. So yeah, disappointing.
Oh crap, I just realised: If Luna wasn't a brainwashed shell of a young girl, she would easily be considered a Mary Sue. Everybody she meets loves and adores her, she is described as a very bright and intelligent kid (despite evidence to the contrary), she achieves everything she sets out to do, like carpentry (another superfluous feature in the book that can be cut out and absolutely nothing would be affected), she has an unusual eye colour, and an unusual birthmark, her dark hair is described as like a starry night, she has "amber skin", she is super special and no one else has powers like her, and her personality flip-flops from boring to annoying.
*sigh*
Nitpick: In chapter 19 there is someone who is only referred to as "the widow woman". Are you serious? That is the most redundant name ever to have gotten past an editor. A widow is already a woman, the male equivalent being widower, so why "the widow woman" and not just "the widow"?
In conclusion: It's a shame, because I'd been looking forward to reading 'The Girl Who Drank the Moon'. The fantasy premise sounded great - an Asian-inspired setting, witches, the moon being magic, a strong, powerful young heroine named Luna, fighting oppression and the patriarchy, the importance of kindness and caring, especially of children, and the promise of no love story. It partly reminded me of 'Sailor Moon' - Luna and her mother even have crescent moon-shaped birthmarks on their foreheads! I should have loved it. Sadly, I can't overlook poor planning and character development, a weak story, the lack of focus on anything, the ADD structure and aimless plot points, and the broken show-don't-tell rule.
What is the point? What is 'The Girl Who Drank the Moon' about? Does the book itself have a clue?
Like with 'I, Coriander', this is an instance of a fantasy tale for children being treated with no care for planning, consistency, attention to detail, or logic. Fantasy is no excuse for making things up on the fly and doing whatever you want regardless of if it makes sense and fits with the story; respect the genre you are writing about.
I know I am in the minority - and I hate to be, despite my not understanding why the book is so popular - but I think that 'The Girl Who Drank the Moon' is overall a boring, confusing, forgettable read. It's as forgettable as the characters are forgetful, and not worth much of anyone's time. There are better, more coherent fantasy novels out there, starring stronger, smarter, and more solid, developed, and genuinely daring female leads worth caring about, who are given freedom and agency in their story.
Final Score: 0.5/5
August 10, 2020
3.5/5
“Knowledge is power, but it is a terrible power when it is hoarded and hidden.”
― Kelly Barnhill, The Girl Who Drank the Moon
This is a hard one for me to rate. I kept going back and forth between 3 or 4, and finally settled upon 3. There are things I loved about this book and other elements that I did not care for. This a book I really wanted to love and had high expectations for. Perhaps I've grown too old for YA novels.
An elderly witch, an enmagicked girl, a brave young father, a wise, poetry loving monster, a tiny dragon, with a huge heart, paper birds, and a mysterious madwoman meet to stop an evil witch who feeds on sorrow. The heroes and heroines here are all endearing; in fact they are enchanting.
As a baby, Luna is left as a sacrifical offering to an evil witch ~~ but is she??? Instead, the witch, Xan, rescues baby Luna, just as she had rescued hundred of babies like her the past 500 years. In addition to goat's milk, Xan feeds the babies starlight. That gives the babbies strength while Xan looks for a safe home for children. However, with Luna, Xan makes a huge mistake. She feeds Luna moonlight, which fills the girl with magical powers.
As Luna grows, her magic is unstopable ~~ and truths begin to unfold about the place and her people and where she came from. There’s so much to love in this book ~~ and yet, I didn't love it. What I admire about The Girl Who Drank the Moon is Barnhill championing the spiritual powers of hope, love and rebellion in the face of fear and cruelty and nationalism. And while I didn't love this book, I do think it is is a marvelous read for young readers all over the world.
“Knowledge is power, but it is a terrible power when it is hoarded and hidden.”
― Kelly Barnhill, The Girl Who Drank the Moon
This is a hard one for me to rate. I kept going back and forth between 3 or 4, and finally settled upon 3. There are things I loved about this book and other elements that I did not care for. This a book I really wanted to love and had high expectations for. Perhaps I've grown too old for YA novels.
An elderly witch, an enmagicked girl, a brave young father, a wise, poetry loving monster, a tiny dragon, with a huge heart, paper birds, and a mysterious madwoman meet to stop an evil witch who feeds on sorrow. The heroes and heroines here are all endearing; in fact they are enchanting.
As a baby, Luna is left as a sacrifical offering to an evil witch ~~ but is she??? Instead, the witch, Xan, rescues baby Luna, just as she had rescued hundred of babies like her the past 500 years. In addition to goat's milk, Xan feeds the babies starlight. That gives the babbies strength while Xan looks for a safe home for children. However, with Luna, Xan makes a huge mistake. She feeds Luna moonlight, which fills the girl with magical powers.
As Luna grows, her magic is unstopable ~~ and truths begin to unfold about the place and her people and where she came from. There’s so much to love in this book ~~ and yet, I didn't love it. What I admire about The Girl Who Drank the Moon is Barnhill championing the spiritual powers of hope, love and rebellion in the face of fear and cruelty and nationalism. And while I didn't love this book, I do think it is is a marvelous read for young readers all over the world.
February 23, 2023
I don't know why I'm just now reading this but wow, it's SO good! Thank you to my Patrons for selecting it as a book for me to read and vlog. Blame it on a childhood of being traumatized by Newberry Award winners, but I tend to be wary of them. If you're like me, I urge you to try picking this one up. It's about a town that thinks they must sacrifice a baby once a year to a witch, a witch who doesn't know why she keeps finding babies but does her best to find them homes, and the special little girl who becomes her family and will eventually change everything.
The Girl Who Drank the Moon is a richly layered narrative with beautiful prose, humor, and a lot of heart. It feels very much like a modern fairytale and like the sort of thing that will go on to be a classic. Delightful, nuanced characters (including the villains that are hateful but don't see themselves that way), and big ideas made accessible for a young audience.
One of the central themes is the idea that it really matters who controls a narrative and stories can be twisted in ugly or beautiful ways. Especially for kids today, this concept of how you know which stories are true, and which hide the truth in deceptive ways is valuable. Not to mention that the way history is framed has real impact. It also deals with grief, death, and the reality that while some people use their trauma as a way to hurt others, their pain doesn't excuse their choices. That every choice has consequences, even unintended ones. And parents might try to protect their children, but one day they will begin to grow up. Also MAGIC! So much magic. And a grumpy but loveable bog monster. And a tiny dragon who thinks he's enormous. Ahhhh I love it so much!!
This book is fantastic and I expect to revisit it in the future. Easily one of the best novels for children I've read in a long time.
The Girl Who Drank the Moon is a richly layered narrative with beautiful prose, humor, and a lot of heart. It feels very much like a modern fairytale and like the sort of thing that will go on to be a classic. Delightful, nuanced characters (including the villains that are hateful but don't see themselves that way), and big ideas made accessible for a young audience.
One of the central themes is the idea that it really matters who controls a narrative and stories can be twisted in ugly or beautiful ways. Especially for kids today, this concept of how you know which stories are true, and which hide the truth in deceptive ways is valuable. Not to mention that the way history is framed has real impact. It also deals with grief, death, and the reality that while some people use their trauma as a way to hurt others, their pain doesn't excuse their choices. That every choice has consequences, even unintended ones. And parents might try to protect their children, but one day they will begin to grow up. Also MAGIC! So much magic. And a grumpy but loveable bog monster. And a tiny dragon who thinks he's enormous. Ahhhh I love it so much!!
This book is fantastic and I expect to revisit it in the future. Easily one of the best novels for children I've read in a long time.
November 13, 2016
Stunningly beautiful writing mixed with a perfectly plotted story filled with adventure, humor, and love. Each of Kelly's middle grade books gets exponentially better (which is astonishing, because they are all amazing), and this one will be a new classic for certain sure.
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