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ttthomas 's review for:
The Moon and More
by Sarah Dessen
This is actually one of the worst books I have ever read.
So, this story follows Emaline as she tries to handle her relationship with her boyfriend, Luke, and the job she has at her family's reality company. Add in about ten other carless subplots and a mysterious new guy, Theo. Basically, this book is a mess.
Let's talk characters. Emaline is a girl who has always been pushed around and has the inability to say no. Now, you'd think this would be set up for her growing a spine, considering Sarah Dessen can't go a chapter without a character telling Emaline that she always does everything for everyone and that's she's basically a walking doormat, but nope, it never comes up. Emaline doesn't really have a personality beyond that, and none of the other basically thousand characters have a lick of personality except maybe Benji, who is Emaline's brother and the walking "young gifted child" stereotype, meaning that the only reason he stands out is because he's a child written like an adult, which is weird because none of the other ACTUAL ADULT CHARACTERS are written like adults. I didn't even realize Emaline's sister, Margo, was supposed to be into her 20's until halfway through the book. And her mom is even more immature, never actually acting like a parent. Which, by the way, isn't purposeful. Like Emaline looks up to this woman and I'm just here like "why???".
Now, the "main" subplot (used very loosely) is Emaline's relationship with her dad and it is... very underwritten. Like, they maybe get four or five scenes together and there's NOTHING there. Like, nothing actually gets resolved, and it's so weird because this book is OVER 400 PAGES. And yet the subplot with her dad is never resolved, the subplots with both Theo and Luke are never resolved, all Emaline's angst about college just disappears.
The only thing stranger than the lack of resolution for the subplots is how poorly constructed the romances are in this book. So, the book opens with Emaline happily in a relationship with Luke, who has been her boyfriend since freshman year. Fine, whatever, I know plenty of relationships that start in freshman year and actually last through high school, like it happens. I'm just wondering how they stayed together that long. Within the first fifty or so pages, they've gotten into multiple fights (one about the fact that Luke took his shirt off to do his MANUAL LABOR JOB), and they break it off because Emaline's text doesn't send, and Luke sees her in the car with another guy. Take into account that Emaline shows him that the text didn't send and that she explained the entire situation to him (she was in the car with Theo because he's renting out one of the houses Emaline's family own through their business, and she was hired on to give Theo a tour of the town).
So, Emaline and Luke break up because Luke's response to Emaline being completely reasonable is to meet another girl at the bar. And then, FOUR HOURS LATER, Theo and Emaline are dating. Legit four hours, it's confirmed in the book. So, Emaline and Theo are dating now. Take into account we're maybe, MAYBE, halfway through the book here. So, you're probably thinking that they spend the rest of the book happily together right? Wrong. Theo, who up until this point has been nice, polite, and really just a true gentleman, is suddenly insulting and stuck-up and guess what. HE AND EMALINE ARE FIGHTING ALL THE DAMN TIME. Now, this could have been a really nuanced character arc in which she slowly sees his true colors. But noooooo, it's rushed and out of nowhere because this book doesn't need character development, instead it needs fifty fucking dating scenes. Cause that's a good use of reader's time.
So, let's discuss "plot". Basically, the book wants you to believe that this story is about Emaline falling in love with Theo and working with Theo on a documentary about this painter, Clyde, who lives in her town. Which honestly sounds like a really cute romance. It's not cute, cause that's like, 30 pages of the book. We see Clyde maybe five times in this book, the first time about 150 pages in, in a DISCOUNT COSTCO of all places. This character that the book wants to make you believe is super duper important doesn't show up until almost halfway through. And that scene is a whole other discussion cause it's weird, but that's not the point. The point is that the book doesn't have a plot. It has a host of plot beats that take a bland set of characters through a bland set of places until the book wraps up and you sit there, in distress, having wasted brain power on something so unrealistic and nonsensical that it makes a Michael Bay movie look coherent by comparison.
I wanna talk scene transitions. Of which there aren't any in this fucking book. Scenes will just random jump without any transition, leaving the reader clueless as to who's in the scene, where the scene is taking place, and sometimes even what's going on in the scene. For instance, one moment Theo and Emaline are shopping in discount Costco and then the next they're kissing and starting a relationship and I'm just left there like "when? how? why?".
The ending of this book is a trashfire. In the end, Emaline doesn't end with either Luke or Theo (and yet this is billed as a teen contemporary romance) and while usually, I'd be fine with that cause she is in college and like it's been stated multiple times that she thought having a relationship in college would be a bad idea, neither of the romance arcs are satisfyingly concluded. Luke's is ended on a "there might be something here for later" except the author doesn't do this correctly and so it kinda just ends up feeling unended. Theo is pretty much just cut entirely out of the story with but a passing mention when his use in the story is done.
So, yeah. This is probably the worst book I've ever read, and if I wasn't already turned off of Sarah Dessen by virtue that her books are very young YA, I am now.
So, this story follows Emaline as she tries to handle her relationship with her boyfriend, Luke, and the job she has at her family's reality company. Add in about ten other carless subplots and a mysterious new guy, Theo. Basically, this book is a mess.
Let's talk characters. Emaline is a girl who has always been pushed around and has the inability to say no. Now, you'd think this would be set up for her growing a spine, considering Sarah Dessen can't go a chapter without a character telling Emaline that she always does everything for everyone and that's she's basically a walking doormat, but nope, it never comes up. Emaline doesn't really have a personality beyond that, and none of the other basically thousand characters have a lick of personality except maybe Benji, who is Emaline's brother and the walking "young gifted child" stereotype, meaning that the only reason he stands out is because he's a child written like an adult, which is weird because none of the other ACTUAL ADULT CHARACTERS are written like adults. I didn't even realize Emaline's sister, Margo, was supposed to be into her 20's until halfway through the book. And her mom is even more immature, never actually acting like a parent. Which, by the way, isn't purposeful. Like Emaline looks up to this woman and I'm just here like "why???".
Now, the "main" subplot (used very loosely) is Emaline's relationship with her dad and it is... very underwritten. Like, they maybe get four or five scenes together and there's NOTHING there. Like, nothing actually gets resolved, and it's so weird because this book is OVER 400 PAGES. And yet the subplot with her dad is never resolved, the subplots with both Theo and Luke are never resolved, all Emaline's angst about college just disappears.
The only thing stranger than the lack of resolution for the subplots is how poorly constructed the romances are in this book. So, the book opens with Emaline happily in a relationship with Luke, who has been her boyfriend since freshman year. Fine, whatever, I know plenty of relationships that start in freshman year and actually last through high school, like it happens. I'm just wondering how they stayed together that long. Within the first fifty or so pages, they've gotten into multiple fights (one about the fact that Luke took his shirt off to do his MANUAL LABOR JOB), and they break it off because Emaline's text doesn't send, and Luke sees her in the car with another guy. Take into account that Emaline shows him that the text didn't send and that she explained the entire situation to him (she was in the car with Theo because he's renting out one of the houses Emaline's family own through their business, and she was hired on to give Theo a tour of the town).
So, Emaline and Luke break up because Luke's response to Emaline being completely reasonable is to meet another girl at the bar. And then, FOUR HOURS LATER, Theo and Emaline are dating. Legit four hours, it's confirmed in the book. So, Emaline and Theo are dating now. Take into account we're maybe, MAYBE, halfway through the book here. So, you're probably thinking that they spend the rest of the book happily together right? Wrong. Theo, who up until this point has been nice, polite, and really just a true gentleman, is suddenly insulting and stuck-up and guess what. HE AND EMALINE ARE FIGHTING ALL THE DAMN TIME. Now, this could have been a really nuanced character arc in which she slowly sees his true colors. But noooooo, it's rushed and out of nowhere because this book doesn't need character development, instead it needs fifty fucking dating scenes. Cause that's a good use of reader's time.
So, let's discuss "plot". Basically, the book wants you to believe that this story is about Emaline falling in love with Theo and working with Theo on a documentary about this painter, Clyde, who lives in her town. Which honestly sounds like a really cute romance. It's not cute, cause that's like, 30 pages of the book. We see Clyde maybe five times in this book, the first time about 150 pages in, in a DISCOUNT COSTCO of all places. This character that the book wants to make you believe is super duper important doesn't show up until almost halfway through. And that scene is a whole other discussion cause it's weird, but that's not the point. The point is that the book doesn't have a plot. It has a host of plot beats that take a bland set of characters through a bland set of places until the book wraps up and you sit there, in distress, having wasted brain power on something so unrealistic and nonsensical that it makes a Michael Bay movie look coherent by comparison.
I wanna talk scene transitions. Of which there aren't any in this fucking book. Scenes will just random jump without any transition, leaving the reader clueless as to who's in the scene, where the scene is taking place, and sometimes even what's going on in the scene. For instance, one moment Theo and Emaline are shopping in discount Costco and then the next they're kissing and starting a relationship and I'm just left there like "when? how? why?".
The ending of this book is a trashfire. In the end, Emaline doesn't end with either Luke or Theo (and yet this is billed as a teen contemporary romance) and while usually, I'd be fine with that cause she is in college and like it's been stated multiple times that she thought having a relationship in college would be a bad idea, neither of the romance arcs are satisfyingly concluded. Luke's is ended on a "there might be something here for later" except the author doesn't do this correctly and so it kinda just ends up feeling unended. Theo is pretty much just cut entirely out of the story with but a passing mention when his use in the story is done.
So, yeah. This is probably the worst book I've ever read, and if I wasn't already turned off of Sarah Dessen by virtue that her books are very young YA, I am now.