Title: The Girl Who Chased the Moon
Author: Sarah Addison Allen
Date finished: 3/3/15
Genre: Fiction, magical realism
Publisher: Bantam Books
Publication Date: March 16, 2010
Pages in book: 269
Stand alone or series: Stand alone
Blurb from the cover:
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.
My rating: 4.0 stars out of a scale of 5
My review: This book will count towards my “Bookish Bingo” reading challenge, marking off the “Magical realism” square. For anyone who doesn’t really understand what the magical realism genre is (because I didn’t really know) its basically when magic is readily accepted in the “rational world” as being normal or accepted. If you’d like to read more about the concept of magical realism as a genre, you can do so here. I really liked this book a lot. It hooked me in almost from the beginning and I couldn’t seem to put it down. Allen has such a talent for writing, as you read her books you can feel the magic in the words leaping off the pages. It is really something special to experience. I loved the plot too, the connection between Julia and Emily. One had given up her daughter a long time ago and the other had just recently lost her mother, both searching for comfort and home. It was a touching and magical (duh) story and I can’t wait to read more by this author.
The bottom line: This was a charming and magical story, I would definitely recommend!
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