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Review: Under The Dusty Moon

by Suzanne Sutherland

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Thank you to Netgalley and the authors for a chance to read this book in exchange for an honest review.
Publish date: 16th February 2016

Title: Under the Dusty Moon
Authors: Suzanne Sutherland
Pubisher: Dundurn
Book: Standalone
Genre: YA Contemporary Romance
Found: Netgalley
Rating: 2.5 Voodoos

She’s with the band, whether she likes it or not.

Victoria Mahler is the sixteen-year-old only daughter of rocker Micky Wayne, whose band, Dusty Moon, took the world by storm when Micky was just a teenager. The band broke up under mysterious circumstances, but, after years spent off the road being a mom, Micky’s solo career is finally starting to take off.

When an offer to tour Japan falls into her mom’s lap, Vic is left to spend the summer under the care of her distant grandmother, and without her built-in best friend. Fortunately, a boy with a secret geek side and a group of feminist game-makers save the season, and Vic starts to see herself as her own person, out from under her mother’s shadow.

But when Micky finally comes home — with a poorly chosen boyfriend in tow — all bets are off. Will Vic be able to maintain her newfound sense of self amidst the building thunder of Micky’s second chance at stardom? And through it all, will Micky still really be her best friend?

- Goodreads

Popsugar Challenge #23. A book that is published in 2016

I found the blurb for this book really misleading and as a result didn’t enjoy this book as much as I would have otherwise.

From the blurb, I expected a book about
1. a girl who struggles in the shadow of her famous mother,
2. who is shipped off to her grandmothers because her mum goes off on a tour,
3. is cut off from her friends,
4. but meets a boy who slowly helps her become her own person, and
5. then everything kicks off when her mum returns from tour with a useless boyfriend and this would be the focus of the story.

What I got,
1. Yes Vic was struggling in the shadow of her mother but only in the same way that most teenagers do when their mother is a happy outgoing person, that everyone knows,
2. She wasn’t shipped off to her grandmothers, they lived close together so she was able to go home, go to places she usually goes to etc
3. She only had one friend and they didn’t meet up because her friend went off to her aunts to babysit, and she could have visited but she was to busy meeting up with Shaun and ignoring her friends messages
4. She actually met the boy prior to going to her grandmothers and just continued to meet up with him and
5. Her mother only got back from tour at about the 80% mark and so this was a very minor point in the story.

So yes I was a little disappointed that the blurb was misleading.

Besides the blurb fiasco, I actually quite enjoyed the story. I liked the cringe worthy first date – it was hilarious, and I didn’t mind that Vic was a selfish teenager. It’s not her fault considering she only had her mother as a role model and she was just as selfish. If anything I hated her mother for always trying to be her friend and never acting as a proper mother, which is obviously what Vic craved.

This book wasn’t about her mum’s return with a crappy boyfriend, this book was more of a diary of how Vic spent the 8 weeks while she was in a cast and how she spent her holiday without her mum over shadowing her. The main part of this story focuses on Vic and Shaun’s relationship. I liked that both Vic and Shaun were not very pretty people, they were just average teens experiencing average teenage emotions. Their relationship grew at a nice pace and it felt real and believable. I’m not sure there was a lot of personal development in any of the characters, which I would have expected in a Contemporary YA, but I did like the struggle for balance that seemed to occur between Vic and her Mother. They needed to become less dependant on each other and learn to live independent lives, and yes in a way they ended up more independent but I felt the ending was a little too rushed to clearly show this. They could just as easily slip back into their old habits. The ending just felt too perfect with every issue conveniently dealt with. It felt too neat in comparison to the rest of the book.

Overall, I would advice not reading the blurb before reading this book, and recommend this to people who enjoy a funny, angsty books about first loves and family dynamics.

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