Reviews with content warning for Death of parent - The Girl Who Drank the Moon

Reviews tagging 'Death of parent'

The Girl Who Drank the Moon by Kelly Barnhill

21 reviews

zoiejanelle's review against another edition

adventurous emotional funny hopeful inspiring lighthearted sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.5

had no idea this middle grade fantasy book would have me weeping at 1am over my mommy trauma and my relationship with grief/death but here i am, covered in tears and snot!

anyway, the newberry award was well-deserved. this book is extremely complex and layered, but perfectly appropriate in plot and style for its intended audience.

i loved the multi-POV, the different perspectives and details that the reader experienced through the larger cast of characters. i loved the overarching themes—which seemed heavy for a MG book, but were handled with care—such as broken families, generational trauma, motherhood, loss, grief, death, identity, adoption, indoctrination, forgiveness, and love.

i somehow came away from this book with a more secure understanding of death and loss, as well as an appreciation for the complexities of parenthood and the trauma that comes with it for both the parent and the child. i did not expect this book to fall so firmly into the “mommy issues” category for me, but damn, it did.

the only flaw was that this was not an “unputdownable” book for me as the reviews suggest. it was definitely a page turner, but only after i got about 60% of the way through it. the beginning was interesting and caught my attention, but i was able to put it down and pick it back up without distress.

this was a perfect example of the MG genre, and i plan to give this book as a gift to all my young reader buddies.

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vibingjaren's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging emotional hopeful medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

I was recommended this book by a friend, it’s not what I usually read but it wasn’t bad. The beginning is slow to start but the middle of the book is pretty good. I was honestly disappointed at the climax and how they

did the time-skip

which as a writer I view as a lazy way out instead of actually writing what happened. I loved the middle of the book too so this was a huge disappointment.

I also was a bit turned away by the weird relationship with Glerk and Zan at the end of the book. It almost seems like beastiality

. Either way this was an okay book. It had good lessons, but I feel like it could’ve been executed better.

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shadowearitei101's review against another edition

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reflective medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? N/A
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

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piperclover's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional funny hopeful inspiring mysterious reflective slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? N/A
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

I won't give this a star rating because it was read for a school assignment but I do have thoughts. This is exactly what I personally enjoy fantasies to be like this a whimsical fairytale story where it's not dark and gritty and there's no kingdoms or wars.

I absolutely adored the world building in this book. The Protectorate is the town that abandons the babies and they believe it's for one thing but it turns out to be a completely different reason. I absolutely love fantasies where the world the characters believe to know is turned completely upside down and is something they are horrified by so this was right up my alley. I actually found the world building to be the most compelling part of this book. I was a little bit bored and impatient through Luna discovering her magic and trying to learn about it because we already known all that information through Xan's pov and I just wanted to get back to the world building and how the protector was living and how

The council of elders were upholding this system of terror by stealing the babies and abandoning them using the story of the witch to cover it up. I was so enthralled with the story of Sister Ignatia being a sorrow eater and how the whole system of abandoning the babies was a way to consistently feed her sorrow and it being upheld by the council of elders because it gained them power and wealth. This was just really clever and powerful and fascinating.

The cast of characters in this book are precious. Luna is the definition of a strong independent female character in a fantastic way. She is curious, stubborn, intelligent and information seeking. And though she makes mistakes and does get a little entitled and selfish sometimes she makes up for it and apologizes.

Fyrian the dragon is adorable and precious and chaotic and delightful. He's so endearing and his character introduces a piece of world building in such a clever and subtle way that you don't even realize it until he end. Glerk the swamp monster is a great foil to Xan's frenetic worrying because he is calm and stable. All of these characters mix together so wonderfully. They're distinct but mesh well together.

I usually dislike multiple povs and while I did feel like was slightly disjointed in the timeline bc of the multiple povs, I did enjoy seeing various povs through the whole town and surrounding areas to get a complete picture of the world and the events of it.

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gemstonejasper's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional funny hopeful inspiring lighthearted fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.0

This is a beautiful fairy tale style story about the power of love over sorrow. It explores themes of family (both found/adopted and biological), love, sorrow, and memory. It especially focuses on the relationship between a mother/grandmother and daughter/granddaughter. I really enjoyed it. I listened to the audiobook while following along in my physical copy. The audiobook is good. I love the voices she does for the characters. I could tell them each apart without paying attention to the "Luna said," "Xan said."

I think this would also be an excellent grandmother/mother/daughter buddy read idea because of the focus it puts on those relationships. I think it would be especially so in families that have one or more adopted members.

I would tell people to consider the content warnings before reading this. It's a middle grade story, so it isn't heavy on gore and violence. But it talks a lot about grief, losing a parent, losing a child, mental illness, kidnapping, confinement, gaslighting, etc. I think these are important themes and topics for kids to learn about (especially in that middle grade range) because if they haven't already, they will experience grief in some form. Just be careful and take care of yourself before anything else.

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mythian's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional hopeful inspiring mysterious sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.5

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bookishfoxes's review against another edition

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adventurous mysterious sad slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? N/A
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.75

The last few months I have been struggling with reading, it kept giving me headaches or pain in my eyes. Most books I started I was unable to finish because I just couldn't read and eventually lost interest or hope. I managed to read a graphic novel and 2 very short books the last few months, but that was about it. Then this book came (along with a new pair of glasses to try) and I ~finally~ was able to finish it!

This book was an easy and quick read - if I had my pre-2022 reading abilities, I would've devoured this book in 2 or less days. The chapters were a perfect mix of medium or short, the occasional longer chapter didn't feel too long. It was easy to follow the switches between POVs, even if there was still some mystery around some characters.

The plot was interesting. When I read the summary, I knew I wanted to read this book. It did not disappoint.

However, at some point not getting answers to the dozen questions I had got a bit annoying. The whole time you're aware you don't know the full story, and I know that's on purpose because the characters suffer from magical amnesia, but it gets frustrating. Even by the end it still feels like there are questions unanswered.

Speaking of the end, it felt kind of rushed to me. The whole book is slow to medium paced, and then the last few pages are suddenly very fast. It didn't really give the ending the story deserved. It was over too fast.

I would still recommend this book. While it didn't become an all time favorite like I had expected, I still had fun reading it. I'll still cherish this book, think back to it with a smile.

My rating: 3.75☆

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