This post was originally published at Novelicious.com and is now at WritingTipsOasis.com. WritingTipsOasis.com acquired Novelicious.com in June 2022.
REVIEWED BY LAURA STANNING
I should probably start by confessing that I’m a dedicated fan of Stardust (book and film) and having watched the film dozens of times I’d been desperate for another good book in the same vein. So I couldn’t have been more thrilled when The Girl Who Chased The Moon landed on my doorstep. The cover is gorgeous for a start; the colour of a clear night sky with a picture of a charm bracelet picked out in stars – it’s elegant and delicate and promises a novel that’s definitely a bit out of the ordinary.
But the really surprising thing about this book is the way in which the ordinary and the extraordinary are woven together. Because to describe The Girl Who Chased The Moon as a book about magic is a bit like describing Sex And The City and a show about Carrie and Mr Big. There’s so much more to it than that.
Emily Benedict has come to the little town of Mullaby after her mother’s death, to live with her strange and reticent grandfather, Vance. She comes in search of her mother’s history, to find out where she came from and why she vowed never to return. Julia Winterson moved to Mullaby to build up the restaurant business she inherited from her father, so she can sell it and head back to Boston and her real life, leaving the past behind. Julia knows that there’s something magical about Mullaby – for Emily the town’s less normal side is only slowly revealed. But as both girls find out, sometimes the past and the present can’t be separated so easily, and sometimes it’s all too easy to judge people based not on who they are but on our assumptions of how they’re going to be.
And that’s the reason that this book is so mesmerising – it’s the combination of a light and beautifully-written novel and a thought-provoking and rather unsettling theme. People in Mullaby judge Emily because of who her mother was, Julia judges people based on who they used to be or who she wishes they were, and those who have magical abilities find that sometimes acceptance comes more easily if you hide them. It doesn’t take a huge leap of imagination to see that this could just as easily be a novel about judgements made based on colour, or race, or religion rather than on the individual themselves; the principles are just the same, and it’s scary to see how easy it is to do it.
I also found it extraordinary that a book with a magical element could at the same time be one of the most realistic novels I think I’ve ever read. There’s no rich and perfect hero, no impossibly beautiful heroine. The inhabitants of Mullaby can be as unkind, confused, unhappy or loving as anyone in the real world and I think most readers will recognise something of themselves in the characters. Maybe it’s because of this that they’re so sympathetic – all the main characters are trying to do the right thing, whatever mistakes they make along the way, and you long for them to succeed and for them all to have a happy ending.
This is the first Sarah Addison Allen novel that I’ve read but, as soon as I’ve finished writing this, I’m going straight out to buy more. She has a real and rare talent for creating characters who spring off the page with life, and for giving us a (not always comfortable) insight into our own prejudices at the same time as an absolutely enchanting read. And that really does seem like magic.
10/10