Beneath a Meth Moon
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5.0 • 1 Rating
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- $9.99
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- $9.99
Publisher Description
Laurel Daneau has moved on to a new life, in a new town, but inside she's still reeling from the loss of her beloved mother and grandmother after Hurricane Katrina washed away their home. Laurel's new life is going well, with a new best friend, a place on the cheerleading squad and T-Boom, co-captain of the basketball team, for a boyfriend. Yet Laurel is haunted by voices and memories from her past.
When T-Boom introduces Laurel to meth, she immediately falls under its spell, loving the way it erases, even if only briefly, her past. But as she becomes alienated from her friends and family, she becomes a shell of her former self, and longs to be whole again. With help from an artist named Moses and her friend Kaylee, she's able to begin to rewrite her story and start to move on from her addiction.
Incorporating Laurel's bittersweet memories of life before and during the hurricane, this is a stunning novel by one of our finest writers. Jacqueline Woodson's haunting - but ultimately hopeful - story is beautifully told and one readers will not want to miss.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Fifteen-year-old ex-meth addict Laurel is writing an "elegy to the past" in an attempt to recover her life. After her mother and grandmother die in Hurricane Katrina, Laurel, her father, and her younger brother, Jesse Jr., move from their temporary new home in Jackson, Miss., to Galilee, Iowa, for a fresh start. Laurel makes a new friend, joins the cheerleading squad, and begins dating star athlete T-Boom, but she is still bereft over her lost family. When T-Boom offers her a taste of "the moon" (meth), her sadness evaporates. "Thing about the moon is it takes you deeper," Laurel says. "Deeper than you'd go on your own." She quickly becomes addicted, neglects her friends and family, and winds up begging on the street in pursuit of more. Woodson's (Peace, Locomotion) dreamlike story is constructed of Laurel's patchy memories peppered with the voices of expertly sketched characters and rich with writerly observations. While readers know that Laurel survives, Woodson maintains tension throughout, making it abundantly clear how easy it is to succumb to meth and how difficult it is to recover from it. Ages 12 up.
