The Girl Who Chased the Moon by Sarah Addison Allen

I’m a sucker for a book with a starry night on the cover. And when I read the synopsis of The Girl Who Chased the Moon, I was drawn in. It sounded sweet and enjoyable, the perfect read for a rainy fall day.

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Synopsis

Emily Benedict has come to Mullaby, North Carolina, hoping to solve at least some of the riddles surrounding her mother’s life. But the moment Emily enters the house where her mother grew up and meets the grandfather she never knew, she realizes that mysteries aren’t solved in Mullaby, they’re a way of life: Here are rooms where the wallpaper changes to suit your mood. Unexplained lights skip across the yard at midnight. And a neighbor, Julia Winterson, bakes hope in the form of cakes, not only wishing to satisfy the town’s sweet tooth but also dreaming of rekindling the love she fears might be lost forever. Can a hummingbird cake really bring back a lost love? Is there really a ghost dancing in Emily’s backyard? The answers are never what you expect. But in this town of lovable misfits, the unexpected fits right in.

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Review

I’m a newbie to Sarah Addison Allen’s work, but for the most part, her books strike me as prose that depicts ordinary life with a twist of the fantastical and a generally happy ending – perfect for a quick “in between” read. I’ve discovered that chick lit fills an interesting void in the literary community that I hadn’t realized existed, the “in-betweener.”

Reading and discovering a new favorite book (NFB) is emotionally overwhelming and when you finish said NFB, it’s hard to pick up anything new because you’re not sure it will live up to the awesomeness that you just experienced with your NFB. One needs a palate cleanser – something that you know won’t live up to the ridiculously high standard set by the NFB, but still has a solid plot and decent characters. Enter the “in between” chick lit novel that lets you come down easy from the NFB high and back into the real world before you dive into the quest for the next NFB.

The Girl Who Chased the Moon, is a solid read with an intriguing plot and characters and is downright adorable in the most realistic way possible. The characters are flawed, and the setting is ordinary in the best possible way. It’s hard to describe fully, but Sarah Addison Allen seems to have perfected the art of making the ordinary extraordinary – of telling a story that could be anyone’s story but has magnificent details that make it unique. The ability to transform our “ordinary daily life” into something spectacular in a natural way is an incredibly difficult thing to do. Interesting things happen to regular people (who may not be altogether “normal”) and Sarah Addison Allen crafts her stories around those moments, the ones that seem straightforward, but moments when our decisions shape our lives for years to come. And that’s how the ordinary becomes magnificently, extraordinarily ordinary, and relatable.

Rating: 8 out of 10 stars

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