I love Sarah Addison Allen. I fell in love with her style of writing with her very first book, Garden Spells. Her whimsical magical style carried through into The Sugar Queen. I waited and waited and waited for The Girl Who Chased the Moon to be published with great anticipation.
I enjoyed TGWCTM, but not with the same enthusiasm I read my way through her first two books. Some of the magical was just right. Some was too much. The town she created was delightful, I'd visit in a heartbeat. But the townspeople were not well developed. The personalities did not grow to overcome their oddness. In this respect I felt let down. I felt the author pushed too hard in one direction, just right in another, and not enough in a third.
The story is about a young girl, Emily, who comes to this town to live with a grandfather she never knew she had. He is a giant of a man. He's either shy or reclusive, I am not sure which, although he does go out for breakfast every day. The awkwardness between him and his newly found granddaughter plays out just a little too well, as I never felt comfortable with the character myself.
Emily soon discovers that the townspeople hated her mother. Their hate was based on her youth as a selfish and cruel young girl. They believed her actions led to the suicide of a young man from one of the town's finest families. However, the mother Emily knew was involved in every cause possible to make the world a better place. The two personalities of one woman did not mesh.
The secrets of the town and the mystery of her mother's past are uncovered as the story progresses. The whimsical touches that endear me to this author are of a character who can see the sweet smell of baking as a flowy, glittery breeze.
The other main character of the story is a woman who returns to the town to settle her father's estate and pay off his debts. Her plan is to leave the town again when she's accomplished this. She also has secrets and a past to be discovered as her own history is revealed.
I am not saying I didn't enjoy The Girl Who Chased the Moon, but I will say my expectations were higher.
So right you are. I, too, was disappointed. The story unfolded in micro-fragments. Where was the sweet, magical flow? I felt the characters wanting to known, then being silenced. I have faith this was a fluke and the next novel will be fantastic...
ReplyDeleteI agree. I am not giving up on Sarah!!
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