A review by misspalah
The Girl Who Drank the Moon by Kelly Barnhill

adventurous emotional mysterious slow-paced

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

3.0

“And the more they asked, the more they wondered. And the more they wondered, the more they hoped. And the more they hoped, the more the clouds of sorrow lifted, drifted, and burned away in the heat of a brightening sky.”

― Kelly Barnhill, The Girl Who Drank the Moon

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As someone that RARELY read fantasy, i knew that major part of fantasy genre usually includes world building and introduction of characters hence why some of those books went over 400 pages but consider i still want to say , 352 pages is too long for my liking. I get why its long but i dont have enough capacity to stay in fantasy world (if you know my genres you know why i said this). That being said, the reading was tedious. You were introduced with many characters , although not at once but some chapters do go back and forth whereby you have to keep track some of them since they are interrelated in a way. I think the turning page is when i discovered sister Ignatia is a sorrow eater (and the whole institution is a complicit in orchestrating the whole baby abducted by the witch so more sorrow could be generated), the madwoman is Luna’s mother and Ethyne is the baddass woman that came during important part of the book and slayed her way into the plot. I dont think i want to write the whole synopsis here ; i think everyone can just google it but picture this ; Whoever claimed they are good in the book is not really good and whoever were accused as a bad guy is not really what they were supposed to be. Another plus point to the book, there’s an old and wise witch with her loyal companions, a juvenile dragon and our main character, Luna who will unleash her true potential as powerful witch once the whole decade of misunderstanding  is being entangled. This is random but i actually like when Antain’s scenes appeared either with the Madwoman or Xan (in the swallow form) because you can see how genuine and sincere Antain are. It showed how he is one of the good guys in the book. Overall, its fun when there’s a twist and it gets tedious when you have to read through one by one as to not miss out on any details in the supposed fantasy world.