The Girl Who Chased the Moon

Nothing like some fluff to take the mind off the craziness of the past few weeks!  I deserve this one, and I'm sure you do, too, so let's get down to it!

Scanning the shelves of the Central Library in Jamaica, Queens, I was looking for Sarah Addison Allen, the author of The Sugar Queen and Garden Spells - either of which, I decided, would hit the spot.  Of course, when you don't request the exact books, you might have to settle for the next in line, and in this case I drew from the shelf The Girl Who Chased the Moon.  With its beautiful cover and promise of serious Southern charm and magical sweetness, I plopped it right on top of my to-go pile.  And I'm pretty glad I did.

Who is this girl who chased the moon?  That would be Emily Benedict, the lonely orphan girl, the daughter of small-town Mullaby's former outcast.  Emily, who would do anything to uncover her mother's past, and the family she never knew she had.  Mullaby is a small town in North Carolina with its fair share of eccentrics, who one way or another have vowed to keep their town's dirty, unnatural secrets - one of which is the history of Emily's mother Dulcie, and as far as Emily can tell, it is nothing to be proud of.  Will Emily ever find her way in this hush-hush little world of strange, suspicious characters, or will her mother's past overshadow any chance at happiness?

This isn't the only tale to tell in Allen's magical Mullaby - there's that of the legendary Coffey family, who for some odd reason never venture outside their mansion after dark.  There's Julia, Emily's disillusioned neighbor who dreams of leaving little Mullaby forever, but at what cost?  And there's Emily's grandfather, the town giant, who has watched both his beloved wife and daughter slip away, and will now have to welcome the granddaughter he never knew.

Is it possible for all these folks to find shiny, sparkly, shimmering happiness in the space of 265 pages?  Well, as much as I hate to give it away, yes they can!  I found this one lots of fun to read the whole way through.  Mullaby's various threads of history and crazy characters with their hopes and dreams all carry a semblance of the magic you'll find in Alice Hoffman's books.  And now you're sensing a "but" - so here it is:  I wasn't nearly as impressed with the language in Allen's book as I was by that in Hoffman's Practical Magic, say.  It just wasn't as mature here, as real in the sense of our own world as a work of art, but instead creates a simpler fantasy version.  There's nothing in here to make you cry, and that's probably just the ticket for you right now, O weary reader.  If you're looking for a nice, sweet beach read this summer with a little hint of the supernatural, you can't go wrong with The Girl Who Chased the Moon.  Be prepared to lay out beneath the stars and dream of coming home again ... you know, some of us believe it's possible.

To think, after all this time, after all the searching and all the waiting, after all the regret and the time she'd spent away, she came back to find that happiness was right where she'd left it.

On a football field in Mullaby, North Carolina.

Waiting for her.