The Girl Who Drank the Moon by Kelly Barnhill
My rating: 4 of 5 stars Swamp Poetry, Love Magic, Sorrow Eating, and Change "The weight of moonlight--sticky and sweet--gathered on her fingertips. It poured from her hands into her grandmother's mouth and shivered through her grandmother's body. The old woman's cheeks began to flush. The moonlight radiated through Luna's own skin, too, setting her bones aglow." Kelly Barnhill writes a lot of that kind of sensual, emotional, and poetic fantasy in her YA fairy tale novel The Girl Who Drank the Moon (2016). As the book begins, a mother tells her child about the wicked Witch who lives in the forest eager to destroy the entire Protectorate (AKA the City of Sorrows) unless the people sacrifice their youngest child to her each year. The novel then depicts a "Day of Sacrifice" on which the mother of the current child goes mad with grief and rage when the Council of Elders show up to take her baby girl away. Interestingly, the Witch in question, Xan, has no idea why the people of the Protectorate keep abandoning their babies in the forest year after year. But she rescues them from death by exposure and finds them suitable families among the people of the Free Cities on the other side of the forest. This time, however, she falls in love with the baby with the starry black eyes, so she accidentally "enmagicks" the girl by letting her drink her fill of moonlight. Feeling responsible, Xan decides to raise the child as her own granddaughter, calling her Luna. In addition to grandmother Xan, Luna's new family consists of her grandfather, a patient and loving 4-armed Swamp Monster called Glerk who is a Bog, a Poet and, in a sense, the whole world, and her brother Fyrian, a "Perfectly Tiny Dragon" who thinks he's a "Simply Enormous Dragon" and has been in a cute state of arrested development for 500 years. It's a charming modern fairy tale family. One conflict in the novel arises from infant Luna's inability to control her chaotic magic. Moreover, Xan's own magic is constantly flowing into Luna, leaving the old Witch increasingly drained and aged. Xan will have to do something with Luna and her power soon, but what? There are other conflicts. Not all Barnhill's characters are charming. Luna's biological mother, the madwoman in the Tower, is being imprisoned and studied for her damaged mind and memory by the Sisters of the Star (an order of female warrior scholars), and despite being denied paper, she magically creates paper birds that "massed in great murmurations, expanding and contracting." The leader of the Sisters, Sister Ignatia, savors other people's sorrow a bit too greedily, while Grand Elder Gherland wants to maintain the status quo a bit too greedily. One of the strong points of the novel is its characters, who are compelling and possess interesting, gradually revealed back-stories (Xan's childhood, for example, was not easy. . . ). Barnhill also works into her fantasy strong themes about magic, memory, time, change, education, sorrow, hope, family, and love. And her rich language makes mundane things magical and magical things sublime, while her wit makes conversations funny. Her writing is a pleasure to read, as in her many-- --sensual descriptions: "The child's scalp smelled of bread dough and clabbering milk." --neat similes: "She gave him a look as sharp as a blade, and he ran out of the room in a panicked rush, as though he were already bleeding." --fun lists: "Even when Luna was content, she still was not quiet. She hummed; she gurgled; she babbled; she screeched; she guffawed; she snorted; she yelled." --moving moments: "Luna's heart was pulled to her grandmother's heart. Was love a compass? Luna's mind was pulled to her grandmother's mind. Was knowledge a magnet?" --humorous lines: "I hope you will be able to make at least one person grovel today." --wise lines: "Trusting in invisible things makes them more powerful and wondrous." --and even some neat swamp poetry by Glerk: "Each sleeping tree dreams green tree dreams; the barren mountain wakes in blossom." The reader, Christina Moore, has a clear and seasoned American voice for the base narration and does a kind and crusty Xan, a deliberate and swampy Glerk, a convincing pre-teen and teen Luna, a scary Sister Ignatia, a funny crow, and so on. I loved her Fyrian, especially when he sings "Luna Luna Luna Luna" with atonal child fervor. I did notice some flaws in the novel. First, Luna and her mother's moon-shaped forehead birthmarks are Special Character Overkill. Second, part of the potent movement of the novel is the growth of Luna from baby to teenager, but although Barnhill mentions facial and magical "eruptions" breaking out when Luna nears 13, and there is even a powerful volcano getting ready to blow, the novel avoids menstruation (unlike, say, Jane Yolen's fascinating exploration of that part of a girl's maturing process in "Words of Power" [1987]). Third, a few too many times a few too many characters explain or summarize what's been happening with the sacrificed and rescued babies and the Protectorate's cloud of sorrow etc. Fourth, Barnhill moves into climax mode a bit too early and stays there a bit too long. Fifth, despite Barnhill's pleasurable language and vision, she is writing too much in the current YA trend of short attention spans, manifesting itself in short sentences and short chapters, in her case 48 chapters in the nearly 400-page novel. Finally, for purposes of suspense, at a key point Barnhill makes Antain, a bright and moral young apprentice Elder who'd rather be a carpenter, too dense and unquestioning for his character. Anyway, The Girl Who Drank the Moon is an impressive fantasy: scary, funny, moving, and magical. Readers who like YA fantasy lacking romantic triangles but possessing plenty of witty and poetic writing and loveable characters and human villains should like the book. (I almost regret another strong point of the novel, that it seems to be a stand-alone work rather than the first in an interminable series.) View all my reviews
4 Comments
Sophia
2/17/2021 07:58:20 am
Perfect Thx ALot!
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JP
2/17/2021 10:21:28 am
You're very welcome!
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Madison Perlotte
7/7/2021 12:26:32 am
I need to know some conflicts of the girl who dranked the moon?
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JP
7/7/2021 10:18:25 am
There are several conflicts, but it's hard to tell them to you without giving away mysteries in the story that should by solved little by little as you read... One, though, set up early in the novel is between the Elders of the Protectorate, who believe there is no witch in the forest and are tricking the citizens into "sacrificing" one of their babies each year by abandoning it in the forest so the "witch" can take it and in return spare the Protectorate and the people of the Protectorate. Will they ever see through the Elders' trick? There are many more conflicts, some from 500 years in the past and some from the present. Another one: will the Simply Tiny Dragon who believes that he's a Simply Enormous Dragon ever find out that he's not a giant dragon?
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