An Emotional Brick Wall – Moonrise by Sarah Crossan

MOONRISE
by Sarah Crossan

Bloomsbury
Publication Date: September 7, 2017

From Goodreads:

‘They think I hurt someone.
But I didn’t. You hear?
Coz people are gonna be telling you
all kinds of lies.
I need you to know the truth.’

From one-time winner and two-time Carnegie Medal shortlisted author Sarah Crossan, this poignant, stirring, huge-hearted novel asks big questions. What value do you place on life? What can you forgive? And just how do you say goodbye?

I want to thank Bloomsbury and Raincoast Books for providing me a copy of this book in exchange for a fair and honest review.

This book was surprising in several ways.

The most immediate was formatting. To flip through the pages, without looking too closely, you might think it was a book of poetry. The lines are short, often split in the middle, with very random spacing. At first, I was concerned with how it would affect my reading flow, but it didn’t. It read very smoothly.

Most of the story is about two brothers. One is on death row, and the other is temporarily living in Texas, near the prison where his brother is incarcerated. He may not be trying to build a new life, but since he needs money, a job happens. And since he can’t spend all his time with his convicted brother, he meets people, including a girl.

This book reminded me a lot of Catcher in the Rye. A young man, a bit outside of his usual surroundings, just trying to exist. Also, there aren’t a lot of major plot points, much like CITR.

And then, BAM! Out of nowhere we’re hit with a massive train of emotion. It’s sudden. It’s powerful. And it’s pretty great.

Fun fact about this post: The main character’s name was JOE! Which wasn’t as weird as I thought it was going to be…