Title: Keeping The Moon
Author: Sarah Dessen
Series: None
Publisher: Speak
Publication Date: May 11, 2004
Genre: Realistic Fiction; Contemporary; Young Adult
Pages: 228
Colie expects the worst when she's sent to
spend the summer with her eccentric aunt Mira while her mother, queen of the
television infomercial, tours Europe. Always an outcast -- first for being fat
and then for being "easy" -- Colie has no friends at home and doesn't
expect to find any in Colby, North Carolina. But then she lands a job at the
Last Chance Cafe and meets fellow waitresses Morgan and Isabel, best friends
with a loving yet volatile relationship. Wacky yet wise, Morgan and Isabel help
Colie see herself in a new way and realize the potential that has been there
all along.
“You should never be surprised when someone treats you with respect, you should expect it.”
When Colie visits her unexpectedly eccentric Aunt Mira, her life gets flipped around as she meets new friends, learns how to deal with the ordeals of waitressing, and discovers how to love. When you’re the daughter of a famously optimistically person, known for changing her life with her incomparable amount of self-motivation, people tend to expect the same from you. Colie, however, finds it hard to be positive about her life, even with her newly thinned physique and stare-inducing lip ring. She must learn to unconditionally love herself before she can confront her haunting past.
“It's so, so stupid what we do to ourselves because we're afraid. It's so stupid.”
How do you do it Sarah Dessen? How do you manage to make the most perfect stories with just the right proportions of love, friendship, self-learning? How do you know so much about life and how to live it? The writing in Keeping the Moon was perfect in every sense of the world. Even when the book was finished, that warm fuzzy feeling that I only seem to get when I read really well done contemporary novels still remained. I have yet to read a Sarah Dessen book that I didn’t like. Coming-of-age journeys you simply can't not learn from, and deliciously sweet romances that are realistic in the rawest of ways, all at the same time. Who could say no? Really?
Keeping the Moon brought up some themes about life that I whole-heartedly agree with. It’s like I’ve always known they were true, but never could put it into words the right way. Like, you have to love yourself before anyone else can. Don’t ask permission to be respected; demand it. Everyone is beautiful in one way or another. This book is so filled with brutally honest quotes, I didn’t know what to do with myself!
“Self respect, Colie. If you don't have it, the world will walk all over you.”
I can’t say that I related with Colie, because I didn’t. At all, really. And sometimes her wallowing pulled just a little bit too hard on my nerves. But one character I honest-to-God loved? Isabel. If I could have one friend from a book it would be Isabel. Pure awesomeness personified in a character from a book. Most of the really good quotes come from her. Her don’t-give-me-crap attitude was amazingly refreshing and inspiring. She expected nothing less than the best. And I admire that.
This book was just another one added to the list of Sarah Dessen successes. Perfect summer read.
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