Review: Beneath a Meth Moon

Goodreads Summary: A stunning new novel from threetime Newbery Honor–winning
author Jacqueline Woodson.

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.

Oh wow. Just wow. This book. This book you guys.

I wasn't sure I was going to like Beneath a Meth Moon when I started it, the style felt strange to me and I just couldn't quite get lost in it the way that I wanted to...I kept getting jerked out of it. But I persevered and before too long I got it...the style was supposed to be jerky because the reader was there with Laurel, right there with her in the thick of things and it fit.  

I'm not much for books about drugs because I feel like I know the story, I feel like I know how its going to go and how its going to end. But those are just the stereotypes. And Beneath a Meth Moon proved to me that there was more there, that there was more than just those stereotypes [aren't there always?] and it just drove everything home. You understand why Laurel did what she did, you understand her pain, you're in her head with her and its not a place that anyone would WANT to be. Its horrifying, its tragic and its real.

Beneath a Meth Moon genuinely feels like you're reading Laurel's stories, her own thoughts and scribblings throughout her life since she found moon and her memories of a time before. And by the end the floodgates will have been released and you'll be bawling like a baby as you go through it all with her. 

5/5