RANT REVIEW: When the Moon Was Ours by Anna-Marie McLemore

Title: When the Moon Was Ours
Author: Anne-Marie McLemore
Rating: 2/5

I don't even know where to start with this book.

'When the Moon Was Ours' had been in my want-to-read section of Goodreads for a long time before I ever seriously considered actually reading it. It came up on my feed, I quickly read the synopsis and decided it sounded good. Added it to my TBR with no intention of actually reading it.

But then I went on my year abroad, and my mum kindly asked me if there were any English books I would like her to buy and post to me (thanks, mum). So, as it was nearing Halloween spooky time, I decided to go with the theme of magical, whimsical and maybe even a bit scary to suit the October vibe. I chose 'When the Moon Was Ours' amongst others.

As soon as I started reading it I found it pretentious. I automatically picked up on the flowery language that was already annoying me by page 3. This continued to bug me throughout the whole book, which I will talk more about later on.

This book had so much potential, especially concerning one of the main characters is trans. I was super excited to carry on reading as soon as I found out Sam is trans because I have never read anything with a trans character in it. I thought it was going to be an eye-opening experience for me, but instead the author threw that all away. McLemore does include some detail on the way Sam feels as a trans boy but the rest of the book annoyed me so much that I couldn't appreciate it as much I would have liked to.

Okay, reason why I hate this book number one: McLemore tries WAY too hard with the language. She makes it unnecessarily flowery (no pun intended lol) and poetic, sacrificing the content as a result. There were so many occasions where I was genuinely confused about what was happening. And, no, that's not because I'm illiterate - I promise you she makes it way too complicated just so she can sound romantic. For example, 

 'Each time the stem crawled a sliver further out of her wrist, she wanted to let a scream pour from her throat' (page 120)

Did a 13 year old write this???

So cringe.

Because of the writing I assumed this was McLemore's first novel but NOPE surprise surprise this is actually her second. So you're telling me she has written, edited, published and received reviews from a previous book... and then gone on to write THIS ?! Did she not learn anything the first time round?

It got to the point where it felt like McLemore didn't even have an editor. It feels like there was no one to say "yo, Anne-Marie, you might wanna calm down a bit". I ended up skim reading whole pages just reading the dialogue because it annoyed me so much.

Reason why I hate this book number two: The writing is CLUNKY. This is another clue that the book didn't even have an editor. For example, the phrase 

'As far as they could take it, they would take it' (page 114)

is STUPID. There are millions of better ways of writing that sentence. Ugh.

Furthermore, McLemore even ended up repeating herself. When Miel gets her rose ripped out of her wrist, she tried

'Holding her wrist against her chest to slow the bleeding' (page 232)

And then 6 pages later she was 

'Pressing her wrist against her chest to slow the bleeding' (page 238)

.

..

...

.... Are you KIDDING me?

Reason why I hate this book number three: There is no plot.

Okay, maybe I will say there is a very, very loose plot. But it's extremely loose. Loose loose loose.

The 'plot twists' never make any sense. There is no plot development whatsoever. Characters just talk to each other for 250 pages and then BAM Aracely is actually Miel's brother. 

For example, fairly on in the book it is revealed that Ms Owens is the one who kindly changed Sam's name on his papers so people wouldn't know he was born female. Then Miel messes up a lovesickness cure for her and suddenly there is this huge panic that Ms Owens is going to reveal Sam's secret. This makes absolutely no sense whatsoever because at no point in Ms Owen's 'character development' (if you can even call it that) does she EVER show herself to be a malicious person. And yet for some reason it becomes this huge deal.

The stupid plot twists continue throughout the whole novel. The plot twist of Aracely actually being Leandoro is so unbelievably idiotic that it genuinely made me roll my eyes. The author is really scraping the barrel here - trying way too hard to be clever and shocking, but just ends up being illogical and so far fetched that it's ridiculous. None of the 'clues' in the plot development are obvious enough to make sense.

And then to make matters worse, Miel suddenly realises who Aracely actually is out of NO WHERE. There is no logical reason why Miel should suddenly come to the realisation that Aracely is actually Leandro and yet she does. She just... realises. With no help. From anyone.

***

However, I did like it enough to finish it. If I TRULY hated it I wouldn't have read all the way to the end. The thing that kept me going was the beautiful concept and setting. I absolutely loved the idea of Sam hanging up moons in the forest - just thought that was such a gorgeous image.

'When the Moon Was Ours' really reminds me of 'We Were Liars' which I also severely disliked. Actually, I think I hate 'We Were Liars' more, so that's a plus. They both have annoying main characters with a weird best friend relationship that's strangely sexual. They go through and argument then make up like nothing happened. Both have an ending that makes no sense whatsoever. But yeah, 'When the Moon Was Ours' is definitely better than 'We Were Liars'.

Final thought. The title doesn't make sense - it isn't related to the plot at all. And we never find out why Miel is screaming about the moon when she first falls out the water tower?? What was all that about???

Safe to say I won't be picking up another one of McLemore's books... ever.

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What do you think? Am I being too harsh?