Title: The Moonlight Dreamers (Moonlight Dreamers #1)
Author: Siobhan Curham
Publisher: Walker Books
Genre: Young adult/teen, Contemporary
Book format: Paperback
Sweet Strawberries: 
Description: Amber craves excitement and adventure. Instead, she’s being bullied at school for having two dads, and life at home isn’t much better. Inspired by Oscar Wilde, Amber realizes that among the millions of people in London, there must be others who feel the same as she does; other dreamers – moonlight dreamers. After chance encounters with Maali, Sky and Rose, Amber soon recruits the three girls to the Moonlight Dreamers. It’s high time they started pursuing their dreams, and how better than with the support of friends?
*Free copy provided by publisher for review…
Review: During one night, when the moon is bright and full, fifteen year old Amber, stuck feeling alone and different, decides to create The Moonlight Dreamers. A secret club where girls like her, with hopes and dreams, can feel safe and normal for being different.
This is a really heart-warming story which is perfect reading for any teen girls especially those who feel different in the world. The story focuses on four girls, Amber, Sky, Rose and Maali and is told in the third person. The story begins with Amber, sitting on a roof terrace and watching a big bright moon. The book moves easily between the four different girls and each chapter or section of a chapter is told from the point of view of one specific girl, though always in the third person.
All four girls in the book are teenagers around the fifteen to sixteen age and what makes this book appealing to read is that each of them has problems in their life. None of them has an easy life and each of them feels different. Amber has two dads and Sky loves to write poetry for example, which makes them feel like outcast among their fellow teens. The book is easy to relate to for so many girls and it’s this reason that it has such appeal.
As the story moves on the girls get to know each other and attempt to fulfil their dreams. and many of the scenes are done from one girl’s point of view and then another. I really liked the way it moved from girl to girl, giving us an idea of what each one was thinking in a situation. Having read a really large amount of YA fiction since my teens, I could guess how the book would work out, but it was still fun to read and the ending was a very satisfying one.
The book would really appeal to girls in their teens. I doubt many boys would be interested as some of the personal problems the girls had were to do with boyfriends and some mention of periods and hints at sex (though there is no actual sex). The book has very occasional swearing, use of the s word, but it didn’t feel out of place given it was selected characters that used it.
Overall I did enjoy this book. It’s very well written and is certainly a story for any teen girls to read, especially if they have dreams they want to aspire to, or feel different to their peers. I really liked the fact that all the girls had very different lives and that the novel embraced things such as gay parents in a positive way without making too big a deal of it. This is certainly a book I would have loved to read when I was a bit of a social outcast at school and is still a nice read for anyone who enjoys YA fiction aimed at girls.
-Read review of book 2 – Tell it to Moon by Siobhan Curham
Do you like this book? What are your favourite contemporary novels? Let me know what you think in the comments below 🙂
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