Book review: The Moon and More by Sarah Dessen

Luke is the perfect boyfriend: handsome, kind, fun. He and Emaline have been together all through high school in Colby, the beach town where they both grew up. But now, in the summer before college, Emaline wonders if perfect is good enough.

Enter Theo, a super-ambitious outsider, a New Yorker assisting on a documentary film about a reclusive local artist. Theo's sophisticated, exciting, and, best of all, he thinks Emaline is much too smart for Colby.

Emaline's mostly-absentee father, too, thinks Emaline should have a bigger life, and he's convinced that an Ivy League education is the only route to realizing her potential. Emaline is attracted to the bright future that Theo and her father promise. But she also clings to the deep roots of her loving mother, stepfather, and sisters. Can she ignore the pull of the happily familiar world of Colby?

Emaline wants the moon and more, but how can she balance where she comes from with where she's going?

Sarah Dessen's devoted fans will welcome this story of romance, yearning, and, finally, empowerment. It could only happen in the summer.

The Moon and More is the latest book from Sarah Dessen, taking place in Colby, a fictional town that’s been used or mentioned in a lot of her books.  One thing I noticed right away is that the book mentions Colby is an island community, connected by a bridge to the mainland.  I don’t recall it ever being mentioned in the other books that use it, so while it’s kind of nitpicky, I kind of got thrown-off by that since I’d assumed in the past that it was a coastal community.

The book itself succeeds as Dessen’s books always do, however.  The characters are well-developed and have their own personalities and lives, rather than simply living within the context of the book’s plate.  There are certain things about them that could’ve been introduced earlier, such as Emaline’s tendency to go to the gym when she wakes up early.  And I’d also like to congratulate Dessen on working with a plot point that usually annoys me: the love interest became extremely annoying, but rather than Emaline going along with it, or it being unintentional on the author’s part and therefore ignored, it was meant to be that way and Emaline broke up with him rather than going along with it and losing her own identity.

The biggest criticism of the book would probably be that the writing gets repetitive when there’s a lot of dialog.  Dessen formats it the exact same way several times in a row, in a way that’s supposed to be different and quirky but just gets annoying because she keeps using it.

Still a solid read, though, so one I’d say you should pick up.  Happy reading!