[REVIEW] Once in a Full Moon
Once in a Full Moon
Ellen Schreiber
eBook provided by publisher via NetGalley
The Superficial: The cover is your typical YA supernatural fare: attractive, long-haried, pouty-lipped, light-eyed girl on a dark background. The font looks good and I like the pop of hot pink on the black background. Also, you can never go wrong with a few shadowy, bare trees, in my opinion.
The Short of It: No. Just no.
The Long of It: I always try to showcase both the good and the bad of a novel when I’m reviewing. Unfortunately, when it comes to Once in a Full Moon, I can not think of anything genuinely good to comment on. The cover is decent? I did laugh often while reading the novel, but I wouldn’t call that a good thing.
At first I was willing to chalk up Schreiber’s writing style to targeting a younger genre; the short, plain sentences and unexplainable jumps in narrative reminded me of something aimed at younger children. Perhaps, I thought, this is supposed to be more of a children’s/middle grade reading level. However, the subject matter and storyline is obviously geared toward high-school aged young adults and up. So, unfortunately, it looks like this is just Schreiber’s normal writing style.
The story is lackluster as well. Celeste, the protagonist, hangs out with “the sixsome,” a group of three couples that, at best, can be described as “worthless” and, at worst, as “vile, cliché paper dolls.” Celeste’s boyfriend is a jerk who even she doesn’t particularly like. She only stays with him to keep her harpy friends happy, and because he is “handsome and popular.” In fact, almost every character in this novel is described according to their popularity. Celeste rebels by secretly (as in, hiding-in-a-stairwell-just-to-talk secretly) interacting with a tragically handsome boy who lives on the Bad Side of town and is mocked by her friends. Of course, Celeste is rewarded for this martyrdom halfway through the novel when Brandon, her super-hot-but-totally-not-popular crush, reveals that his family owns a large chunk of the city and that he was actually way popular at his old school. OF COURSE!
I believe the great thespian Christian Bale said it best.
In addition, nothing much happens in the story besides longing glances and fast growing hair. Did you know that werewolves are simply men with goatees and long hair?
Pictured: Werewolves.
I originally typed up a longer review listing a few examples of things I found unfortunate about this book, but I ended up deleting it. Why? Because I felt like I was beating a poor, dying horse. I’ll just leave my review simple: No.
Opening Lines: It began underneath the haunting glow of a full moon. I was deep within the woods with my boyfriend, Nash, my best friends, Ivy and Abby, and their boyfriends, Jake and Dylan, all of us huddled around a campfire and telling ghost stories. It was unusual for us to venture off into nature, as we spent most of our time in the safety of suburbia.
Score: 2/10
