This is usually the type of summer themed coming of age contemporary that I love. And in some ways I can understand where Sarah, the main character, is coming from.

She's fifteen about to turn sixteen, and just been dumped by her best friend turned boyfriend because she hides behind her love of science and doesn't get involved in the world unless she has to. During the annual summer trip to their aunt's house at the beach Sarah decides she will try and act more like her pretty popular older sister Scarlett who has loads of friends and boyfriends.  Whilst starting this experiment, Sarah meets Andrew, a handsome local boy. They hit it off in an awkward but cute way. Should be fun enough and fairly easy to see where it's going right?

My biggest problem with this is the age difference. Normally that wouldn't bother me if both parties knew the ages of the other person. She's just turning sixteen and he's 19 or 20. If he knew how old she was and they fell in love regardless, chances are I would love this book.  The problem I have is Sarah lies about her age. Tells him she's 18. This left me with a sinking feeling. I skipped to the last few pages and that made me even more irritated. Sarah lied about her age to a boy who is 20. If someone finds out about their relationship and objects there could be serious potentially life ruining consequences for this boy. Does Sarah even think about this? No! Not at the start of the book, when the relationship starts, maybe she's thinking it won't go anywhere (when it's fairly obvious it will)  Maybe in the middle this point comes up? I don't know.

 

(spoiler show)

Based on that alone and what I read of the end of the book, I'm too annoyed to really to want to know how they got there. Especially since this was a book I was really looking forward to. I'm now marking it as  DNF.

Initial reaction: Bean was a relatable character that I liked following for the most part in this narrative of a geeky stargazing girl trying to navigate her way through several changes that occur in her life back-to-back. Still meditating on the rating (Probably between 3.5 and 4 stars), but I think Rebecca Maizel's talent for showing character intimacy was well-noted here.

Full review:

I honestly had no idea what to expect picking up Rebecca Maizel's "Between Us and the Moon" - I did know that it was a book where the main character is an awkward, geeky teenager who's just coming of age (she turns 16 in the story), and it's a rollercoaster emotional ride of first-times, social awkwardness, and other things. I would definitely classify this as YA, but it contains mature themes and discussions (i.e. sex).

I know the blurb compares this with Judy Blume's "Forever", but I'm casting that comparison out of the window because I hate comparisons (Dangnabit, let a book sell on its own merits!). Instead, I'm just going to talk about the book itself.

Let me first say that with the scheme of events in this book, I didn't think I'd like it, because it's built on the premise that Bean (Sarah) is a girl who's lying about her identity and she translates that lie in several places of her life in an effort to be what she thinks other people thinks she should be. Bean's dumped by her boyfriend (cheated on and dumped, actually) and she thinks that she needs to change herself in order to be more accepted. She sees her older sister Scarlett as someone to model herself over, thus she begins the "Scarlett experiment", where she models behavior she *thinks* her sister would embody - overt displays of confidence, dressy clothes, etc.

(For the record: she's 15 starting this story turning 16, so her insecurities and actions given the context of this book - it makes sense. I didn't like her actions or behavior, but the book does a decent job of showing why she acts like this, and I felt sorry for the poor girl because her family practically doesn't seem like they give her enough attention or guidance for certain things.)

She ends up meeting a college guy named Andrew and the "experiment" continues with him being a part of it, but unwittingly. For the record, I loved Andrew and thought the narrative did a great job of showcasing his character. Bean, on the other hand, starts feeling the weight of this "experiment" and the contradictions as time goes forward.

Sometimes I was icked out, but I could see this actually happening to/with someone (and I wish it didn't). I almost want to say that this book reminds me of how torn I was reading Katie Cotugno's "99 Days" - it's well written, the characterization is very on point, and expands on its subject well despite how contentious the overarching story may be. I actually think this feels more realistic (and more maturely handled) than many purported New Adult novels tend to be on its subject matter. But did it build a memorable connection with me? Yes and no. I'm glad at least it was realistic in its handling and that Bean has a coming to terms that progressively came across in the novel, but it was still something that I had a hard time connecting with - in part for the relationships (Bean's lie, the context and events that happened before the reveal was made, including sexual relationships) and in part for the very nature of it, I guess.

The open ending left me feeling neutral about the narrative as a whole because there's something unspoken about the relationship there, which could work, but it still doesn't feel like there's some follow-up of consequence from that.

Overall, I'm putting this up half a star because Luci Christian did a fantastic job of the audio narration, and I'd certainly read more from Maizel in the future, though I'm familiar with her narratives already, just not in this particular genre.

Overall score: 3.5/5 stars.

	I like vampire stories and found this an interesting take on vampire stories. I've never read one where the vampire became human again. I believe this is one of a series and I look forward to more of this story.

 

Between Us And The Moon - Rebecca Maizel this is silly, and i know it's silly, but this book is so hard to review. i've never felt quite so jerked around by a book before - which is almost ironic, considering that the very heart of this book lies there: jerking people around.

bean (or sarah, if you want her government name) is a silly, star-brained girl who's in what she thinks is a perfect relationship with her lifelong best friend. the problem, of course, is that people change more in their teenage years than they do at any point in their lives, and she's a little too preoccupied with her beloved comet observation to realize what's happening until it's too late.

enter a break up. enter lack of a best friend. enter a broken heart.

and then, as is almost always the case, enter a sister. a perfect, blonde, graceful ballet dancer of a sister whose shadow is damningly cast over sarah and has been since... well, birth. basically.

the rift between these two sisters is obvious within a couple of pages, but so is something else: scarlett loves her sister. she really, truly loves her so much that she pretends to be interested in space and tells her things are cool when they're lame, and she makes efforts, even though they're tiny.

our bean, however, is stubborn. she's awkward, socially inept, slightly (and somewhat ironically) self-centered, and above all else, she is presumptuous. she assumes people feel a certain way without asking, without giving them a chance. she writes everyone off and isolates herself purely because she assumes no one wants to spend time with her. this is a problem, obviously.

when the annual family vacation to cape cod to stay with her rich, widowed aunt nancy rolls around and her sister is out and about, living her life while sarah is stuck inside without any opportunity to live one )because, much like her, her parents and her aunt assume she's going to stay the same, that she doesn't ever want to do anything different,) the weight of her break up becomes too much for sarah, especially when she finds out that her former best friend, current ex-boyfriend cheated on her before their break up was official.

and, in true nerd fashion, she decides to fix it the best way she knows how: science -- social science, that is. she steals her sister's clothes, and even bits and pieces of her personality in the beginning of her "experiment", and parades around cape cod like she's one of "those girls" (which i hate - i hate the those girls stereotype, that we still support a world where we 'other' other girls, but it's impossible to avoid such tropes in ya fiction, i suppose, since teenage girls tend to do that,) so she can impress boys. make friends. change her life. what she truly wants, however, is simply to be noticed by her family.

the journey that sarah/bean takes throughout this book is realistic to the point of occasionally being infuriating. i liked her from time to time, i wanted to smack her other times, and overall, i felt a need to... embrace her to teach her, to protect her, to help her -- but also to smack her, never, ever forget that i wanted to smack her for at least the final 30% of this book.

her lying is immature, it's unnecessary. her childlike desires for her family's attention, to be noticed, to outshine her sister, to feel like she matters (which is, of course, the most ridiculous because it's so very obvious from the outside that she does,) but it's fitting. it's compelling. it's good reading. it's incredibly relatable for my inner 16 year old that remembers feeling like i was never good enough for attention or acceptance or love or anything because i was fat, i preferred books to tv/movies, and i was downright awkward with a shitty sense of humor and no perception of boundaries whatsoever. she's a real, live teenager with all of the frustrations and irritations that come along with it. she's a complex, layered character that jumps right off of the page and into your life and demands your attention.

this story told itself beautifully. the writing, the pacing, everything. it was a roller coaster in reverse: it climbed speedy, sure, fluid and without fear, and it declined with all of the hesitance of a girl who's fucked up, of someone who's afraid of losing everything that they have.

andrew is a heart throb. he is also a heartache. i found myself swooning and mooning over him, over the way he spoke, the things he did. he was a dream, a vision. i loved him. i loved him until the very last second of the book. he was realistic, damaged, flawed, every bit as complex as sarah.

i can't say i supported the couple, knowing what i knew, but i loved their interactions. i loved how effortless it was. i loved how he truly saw her (as much as he could) and how she truly saw him. i loved the ending.

oh my god, the ending. i won't go into details but it was unexpected in an entirely pleasant way. no disgusting cliches here, no dusting problems under the rug, no tying of pretty pink bows around broken, shattered things and calling them perfect. this book was real. it was vibrant. it was wonderful. i loved it.

It's almost over. I've waited so long for this. Lenah has to do what she fears to get her soul mate back. So many people/teens and vamps have died. Rebecca has written a page turner. She has built up such strong anticipation for a HUGE finale. I hope I won't be disappointed.