The Girl Who Chased the Moon: A Novel
By: Sarah Addison Allen / Narrated By: Rebecca Lowman
Length: 7 hrs and 2 mins
Lovely writing, sweet characters, a touch of magic thrown into a touch of Southern Gothic… ho-hum…
Really, the thing about Sarah Addison Allen is that she’s quietly magical. There are elements of wonder thrown into her Southern towns, characters who might struggle but wish to do the right things, no hissy-fits to go with the bits o’ the mysterious she writes in. Basically, her stories are little treats to be savored after, say, another audiobook or something has brought me to my knees. Her stories don’t have toooo much depth, but she makes up for it with writing skills that bring enchantment into one’s home/ears.
And maybe I’d not been brought to m’ knees, exactly, but I certainly was in the mood for a light listening bit o’ magic.
Okay…
The writing itself is as quietly stellar as always, the characters are as earnest as always, there’s the charming bit of magic… as always. And not much else. There’s a LOT that’s just thrown in willy-nilly, maybe just cuz Allen was wantin’ to do her usual Zing Thing.
Quirky young Emily, with nowhere else to go, is new to small town Mullaby to live with her grandfather as he’s her only kin now that her enigmatic and do-gooding mother has died suddenly and tragically. Why, Emily didn’t hear ANYthing of her grandfather whilst growing up, anything of Mullaby, anything of her own mother, now that she thinks of it. It’s all very new to her. That her grandpapa is a gentle giant? Okaaaay. That he himself is fairly Mum’s The Word and his welcoming of her isn’t the liveliest? Okaaaay. That almost immediately she discovers her romantic lead, and he’s leery then helpful, that they’ve a Past that she knows nothing about?
Okay.
Wham! Bam! Instant Predictability.
Then we’re off to our next heroine, the quirky middle-aged Julia. She bakes constantly, and imMEDiately she’s thrown into a situation wherein HER romantic lead is all hot for her, won’t take no for an answer, that we see instantly they’ve a Past that she knows PLENTY about.
That’s what-all Allen has crafted into a 7-hour story that SHOULD’ve been more like 8, 8 1/2-hours. Soooo many things are alluded to, exposed, accepted. There’s the standard whimsy like bedroom wallpaper that magically changes itself to suit the occupant’s frame of mind. There’s the baking that somehow magically draws people to it, that liberates Julia and sends her dearest wishes out into the world, that subsumes her deepest misery and regrets.
There’s the “magic” that happens between our romantic duos. And of course, there’s that gentle giant of a grandfather. And it aaaaalllll gets wrapped up with convenient timeliness and with only the tiniest bit of angst with the Julia/Sawyer pairing. Emily’s own romantic relationship? Sssssh! there’s a secret there that’s been kept under wraps for centuries, the town knows about it, but the family’s pretending that it’s still a secret, which it is, to Emily, but then she’s told about it, scoffs even tho’, seriously, the WHOLE town KNOWS about it, and then she accepts it, and all is tra la la, la la, hearts and flowers.
None of this is helped by Rebecca Lowman’s underwhelming narration. She just sounded so very disinterested in what she was reading, kinda bored with the whole thing. And with multiple male characters, it woulda been nice if she could portray them as something other than growly, esPECially when they were begging the heroines for A Chance, or A Second Chance, or what have you…
So I guess, all things considered, I’m saying that I didn’t buy Emily’s magical storyline, or Julia’s magical baking, but I preferred Julia and Sawyer’s story best. At least it was all fraught and somewhat complicated because Julia was all fraught and complicated. Allen’s deft hand at quiet got a wee bit toooo deft with Emily, but at least she got Julia right. There was pain and remorse and mistrust. Yeh yeh yeh, we all know how it’s going to end, and I did NOT appreciate the last five minutes of the audiobook where that particular story wraps up all sweetly with threads galore dangling, and with the Listener wondering, questioning: Whazza? WhattheHECK just happened?!
It was The Michael J. Sullivan Twist at the End Boooo!
Only without the decency of offering a sequel to scorn…
As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.