A Book Review:The Girl Who Chased The Moon

This month's book review is Sarah Addison Allen's The Girl Who Chased The Moon. It's a book I've reread so many times I've lost track. Here's why I adore it.

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Book Description: Emily Benedict came to Mullaby, North Carolina, hoping to solve at least some of the riddles surrounding her mother’s life. Such as, why did Dulcie Shelby leave her hometown so suddenly? And why did she vow never to return? But the moment Emily enters the house where her mother grew up and meets the grandfather she never knew--a reclusive, real-life gentle giant—she realizes that mysteries aren’t solved in Mullaby, they’re a way of life: Here are rooms where the wallpaper changes to suit your mood. Unexplained lights skip across the yard at midnight. And a neighbor bakes hope in the form of cakes. 

Everyone in Mullaby adores Julia Winterson’s cakes—which is a good thing, because Julia can’t seem to stop baking them. She offers them to satisfy the town’s sweet tooth but also in the hope of rekindling the love she fears might be lost forever. Flour, eggs, milk, and sugar . . . Baking is the only language the proud but vulnerable Julia has to communicate what is truly in her heart. But is it enough to call back to her those she’s hurt in the past?

Can a hummingbird cake really bring back a lost love? Is there really a ghost dancing in Emily’s backyard? The answers are never what you expect. But in this town of lovable misfits, the unexpected fits right in.

Ang's Review: Ms. Allen's stories have a special kind of magic to them, a combination of bitter and sweet, dark and light that is done so seamlessly I am in awe of her.

While her books are not perfection (but honestly, what book is truly perfection?) the way they make me feel when I read them takes my breath away. I long to live in the world she's created, to eat flowers that will make me fall in love or have books follow me around, to meet a very tall man who checks his empty dryer for frogs or live in a room with mood changing wallpaper.

Ms. Allen looks for magic in this world, magic of the everyday-ordinary variety and that of the extraordinary, the impossible, the impracticable, but mostly love's magic and the bounds between not just lovers but sisters, friends, mothers and daughters. She weaves her own magic, that cannot be bottle like fog, but felt deep within. The kind of magic that makes you laugh and cry, swoon and sigh. The kind of magic you hope to find every time you open a book.

Pick up a copy of The Girl Who Chased The Moon
on Amazon or other major retailers.

Make sure to check out all of
Ms. Allen's awesome books on GoodReads.