A review by vinreads
When the Tides Held the Moon by Venessa Vida Kelley

adventurous emotional funny hopeful inspiring reflective sad tense slow-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? Yes

5.0

This book reads like a classic, yet is written in 2024. Its beautiful prose and language is a bit slow to get through, but has left me wondering what I'm going to do now- how I'm going to just move on and read another book like I didn't just read the singlehanded most beautiful book in a very long time. The cast is diverse and nothing is as it seems at first glance. Characters you think you'll hate turn out to have the saddest back stories and things going on in their lives that really make you feel for them, and it's really truly hard to choose a favorite amongst them all. The villains are realistic and the book well thought out in terms of time period and setting. You can tell a great deal of thought and love and labor and care went into the making of this, and I fully expect to see this book on every major newspaper's best seller best of the year list, like Cat Sebastian's You Should Be So Lucky was so highly accoladed by the NYT and several other outlets last year. 

I fear that we are skipping backwards in terms of progression here in the US, and reading this book felt eerily similar to some of the things we might face regarding sexuality and gender in these coming years, and I think this book will be a really helpful read to anyone who feels lost or scared, to know that there is a piece of fiction that echoes present issues but retains the sentiment that there's nothing wrong with being the way you are. 
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