Review: Moon Rise

Moon Rise by Marilee Brothers

My rating: 5 of 5 stars



Disclosure: I received a free special eBook version of this series, including all four books in one, from NetGalley in return for an honest review.

Synopsis Book 2: Moonrise: Her mom's still dating losers. Her boyfriend's gone back to Mexico. Dad still hasn't told his wife and kids that she exists. At school, the drama queens and bullies still rule. But worst of all for Allie Emerson--aka the Star Seeker of an old Gypsy prophecy--is that her powers have taken a hike. She can't read minds anymore. She can't move stuff just by looking at it. The other Star Seekers are counting on her psychic gifts more than ever, and the evil Tri-marks are closing in, eager to snatch her magic moonstone necklace while she's helpless. The hot new guy at school is ready and willing to fight her battles, but he comes with some wicked baggage. Dear Diary: I'm a little worried. My new BF is a demon. Welcome again to Allie Emerson's funny, scary, amazing, and always unpredictable life, as the girl voted least likely to save the world from evil.

My Thoughts: I found the quick transfer of Allie’s affections from Junior to Beck to be entirely appropriate and realistic for a high-school Sophomore (which, by my calculations, should be correct). I kind of hope Beck hangs around, but knowing high schoolers, I imagine Allie will have a new love interest by the next book.

I ran across one huge, gaping plot hole – in a “flashback” to the scene when Allie is hiding in Junior’s living room from Revelle, she claims she grabbed her moonstone before holding her palm up to the crucifix, which then moved - BBBBBZZZZZZZZZZZTTTTT Nope; Junior had already taken and hidden the moonstone at that point, and Allie was running without it. Important to pay attention to these details in a series! Also, it is obvious the writer didn’t actually go to a small high school, if she claims a student body of 89 couldn’t field an 11-man football team. In my senior year, counting the 8th graders, there were 79 students in the high school building – obviously there were probably about 50 or 60 that were actually high schoolers, 19 of which were in my Senior class. I can’t find my yearbook at the moment, but if I’m recalling correctly, there were around 20 or more boys on the team. More than enough to have both a junior and senior varsity squad with extras for sitting on the bench and for errand boys. In a small town, everyone who is physically capable goes out for football – if you don’t, you’re basically signed a document saying you wanted nothing to do with being popular. Obviously, just because the town is small doesn’t mean there won’t be enough for a football team. Also, while there are cliques, they aren’t as numerous as in a larger town – there is basically cool kids, and not cool kids. Among the cool kids are the jocks and tough-guys. Among the not-cool kids are the welfare kids and brains. In some ways it is simpler, but as to being a good experience? There are a lot of thing I probably wouldn’t mind a do-over on in life, but you would have to force me with weapons of mass destruction before I’d endure high school again. (Maybe you’re wondering what clique I was in? I was a clique of one – the weird kid who didn’t give a snort whether I fit in anywhere or not, because I realized when I was 8 that popularity was a ridiculous notion and it was much better to just be oneself.) But, as often happens in these reviews, I am wandering away from the point here. My point is that the high school Allie attends was larger than the one I attended, and if my high school could create a full football squad, there is no reason hers couldn’t have.

Anyway, this book was even better than the first – the additional character development was great, and we’re learning in small bits and pieces more about Allie’s background and her family’s history, which is quite interesting. I am very much enjoying this series. However, I will need to pause here for the week and get some editing done - I will finish this series this next weekend. 5 out of 5 stars



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