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Between Us And The Moon
Summary
“A luminous YA love story that evokes Judy Blume’s Forever for a new generation.
Sarah—Bean to her friends and family—is an aspiring astronomer and champion mathlete. She lives behind her beloved telescope, with her head in the stars and her feet planted firmly on the ground. For as long as she can remember, she’s also lived in the shadow of her beautiful older sister, Scarlett.
But after a traumatic end to the school year, Sarah goes to Cape Cod for the summer with her family, determined to grow up. It’s there that she meets gorgeous, older college boy Andrew. He sees her as the girl she wants to be. A girl like Scarlett. He thinks she’s older, too—and she doesn’t correct him.
For Sarah, it’s a summer of firsts. Before she knows what’s happened, one little lie has transformed into something real. And by the end of August, she might have to choose between falling in love, and finding herself.
Fans of Jenny Han and Stephanie Perkins are destined to fall for this romantic and heartfelt coming-of-age novel about how life and love are impossible to predict.”
-From Amazon.com
Review
Well this was definitely a different book than most that I’ve read. But it was really interesting! It was a teen romance book and definitely was quite teen oriented, though there was talk about sex, but in the aspect of teens and stuff like that, though it wasn’t really a romance book per se, more like coming of age and stuff like that.
The writing was simple in nature, definitely for YA, probably 16 years or so, and followed teenage problems. The main character, Sarah, didn’t really fit into society very easily because she was interested in the stars and kind of didn’t mold into the societal ‘teenage girl’ perception. It followed her transformation from a younger girl into her wanting to be different and learn how to be beautiful and have a boyfriend.
Now, one thing which I really didn’t like about the book was the fact that Sarah lied. She lied about her age and where she was going to school and while that was what the book was about, it kind of annoyed me. In the modern day and age, people lie about so many things and this just seemed to reiterate it. Yes, it did make it clear that lying was wrong and shouldn’t be done, it took the entire book for her to get to the point where she was able to come clean and I really didn’t like that. But, that was the point of the book. My disliking of it is a personal opinion. And I don’t mean the fact that it was written, but I honestly hate people who lie so it hit a chord in me.
There was also the aspect of how she was treated in the book. All teenagers have communication issues with their parents. Their parents won’t listen to them and we have arguments with them. So this showed her relationship with her parents and her Aunt, Aunt Nancy, who wanted to mold her into the perfect lady and was pushing her too fast to become that. It showed their arguments and conflicts and how it was sorted out towards the end.
Sarah did also have a sister, Scarlett, and it was a good touch to show their love/hate relationship. Many kids have siblings and seeing how they argued and either resolved it or mended over the area/hurt was interesting. It wasn’t a perfect relationship nor a destroyed one as it had its ups and downs.
One point that I would like to make is the fact that the sex in the book was against everything which teens are taught. It was not safe sex. While in most books that isn’t an issue, especially in adult romance books, in books for YA’s, it is wrong in my personal opinion. They will read that sex is okay and happening and they didn’t use protection and no consequences will occur. Sure, romance in adult books is just for the fix, which is fine, but for kids, the sex in this book was just to round out the teen experience, and it makes sex seem like something so simple and something with no consequences, when it does – especially with teen pregnancy on the rise. Might make the sex seem more awkward to add a sentence about condoms or something, but that is how it is and it should be explained as such to get it into teens head.
Overall this was a typical teen romance book with summer romance. The ending was, while deserved, highly un-fulfilling and made me wanting answers and to see something else, but, can’t really complain. This was honestly a great YA book and I really do suggest reading it as it was very well written and can teach some valuable lessons.
Lesson number one, and the main one to take away from this book ~ Don’t lie. Ever~
Enjoy and happy reading!
