Reviews with content warning for Violence - When the Moon Was Ours

Reviews tagging 'Violence'

When the Moon Was Ours by Anna-Marie McLemore

7 reviews

rockyroadbutch's review against another edition

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emotional hopeful mysterious reflective sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

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tsnhjhn's review against another edition

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inspiring lighthearted mysterious medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

A lovely representation of a trans main character and other queer characters.

It took me a few tries to get into the book because I didn't really know what was going on, but give it a few chapters and you'll get the hang of the super (probably overly) flowery language. I do enjoy poetic metaphors but I think metaphors are most impactful when they are more sparse--there seemed to be a metaphor or simile in almost every paragraph and it got to be a bit too much when it impeded understanding

Despite all of that though, once you get into it, the magical realism is really nice and the setting is set up so well I feel like I can envision the town full of paper moons and superstition and culture and it so lovely and comforting.

The two main characters, Miel and Sam, are pretty fleshed out and their backstories are written uniquely. I do get the fairy-tale vibe that Macklemore was going for and I think the book is stronger for it. I also loved Aracely and Sam's mom as these older motherly figures to our two MCs.

The Bonner sisters had a good element of mystique surrounding them and I wanted to know more about them

but we kinda... didn't? I don't know I had high hopes for Ivy and the rest to make more of an impact with their backstories and reasoning but to me, their big reveal of they just want to feel together again and that's why they're forcefully cutting roses off of Miel to try to believe in the magic of her roses fell slightly flat I wish we spent more time with this to tie up their ending.

In general, I appreciated this book for its trans and POC representation and I enjoyed reading this for the magical, spooky vibes, and the MCs, but not necessarily for the plot.

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littlebluenaiad's review against another edition

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emotional mysterious reflective medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

1.5

The prose was pretty. I’ll admit that. My problem with it, however, was that it distracted from whatever was happening at any given moment. The chapter titles make no sense. Sam and Miel are making out and I can’t even realize until a couple pages in when they start taking off their clothes.

Sam frees Miel from the glass coffin, and I don’t even know until they’ve run far from it. And when there were petals all over Sam’s face, I wasn’t sure who they were coming from.

And maybe that was the point. But I didn’t enjoy it. It felt like the text was so descriptive that it circled from show don’t tell back to show, because I can only realize what’s happening once the characters tell me. And it was also so, so repetitive. I can’t count how many times it was reiterated that the Bonner sisters had red hair, that they could have anything they wanted, that they wanted the magic of Miel’s roses no matter how many times she told them they wouldn’t do what they wanted from them.

Also, more distressingly, it was very uncomfortable whenever Miel would say that she thought of Sam as her dead brother. Every time, I wanted to shake her and scream, “Then WHY did you sleep with him on page 3? WHY can’t you stop of making out with him?” Needless to say it was. Very uncomfortable. And I wish that they were just friends, even without all the brother comparisons, because I felt like the fact that they both just thought of kissing whenever near one another distracted from their friendship.

Instead, the book ends with them about to have sex.

I almost wish that this were a children’s or middle grade book instead, because the concept would work so nicely for that.

One last problem I had with this book. They kept saying that people called Miel and Sam “Honey and Moon”, but they really only call her “Honey” as in “Miel”, not because she ate it off spoons and knives and was oh-so quirky, but because Miel is literally her name. And literally no one called Sam “Moon” in the entire book. Yet another example of telling instead of showing despite the rich, descriptive writing style. Thank you for reading, this concludes my rant.

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taleofabibliophile's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging emotional hopeful mysterious reflective tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.0

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aimiller's review

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emotional hopeful reflective medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

This book is written so tenderly and sweetly and I appreciate it so much for what it does but it also... woof there's just so much that's not my cup of tea in terms of trans writing. Which doesn't mean it's Bad or Bad Representation per se, just not what I want and need--and granted, I'm an adult and in a different stage of my life than the audience of this! Just didn't love it, and found myself wincing a lot.

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i_cant_read429's review

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adventurous dark emotional mysterious reflective tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.75

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wrensterling's review against another edition

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emotional hopeful inspiring reflective medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.0

this book took me longer than expected to read. don't get me wrong, it's a lovely book with a lovely message but the way it is presented just lacks. i liked the metaphors and the details, the innocence and the loss of it so how did it get so bad in the middle? what happened then?

miel was being too much of a wimp most of the time and would not even tell sam which was just painful to get through. the bonner sisters were just a bit too extra to the point where it seemed a bit forced, but i think that's subjective.

not my favourite book but definitely not the worst one!

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