The Girl Who Chased the Moon

He might be tall enough to see into tomorrow, but he hadn’t looked there in a long, long time.

Emily Benedict comes to North Carolina because she has nowhere else to go. Her mother has just died. She never even knew her father, and she knows of no other family members either, until she discovers that she has a grandfather living in Mullaby. Imagine her surprise when she finds that her sole living relative is a real-life giant, something straight out of a fairy tale. In Mullaby though, a giant’s not so strange. After all, it’s a place where wallpaper can change with one’s mood. The smell of a cake baking can call someone home from miles away. Lights dance through the trees at night, and no one thinks twice about it. Emily’s mother never told her anything about her past, and now she’s determined to find out anything and everything she can. Emily is completely flabbergasted when she learns that her no-nonsense, do-gooder mother was a spoiled, selfish, materialistic teen. In her high school years, Emily’s mother, Dulcie, was the ring leader of the popular girls. Wielding great charisma and a malicious personality, she was both adored and feared. But something happened just before Dulcie left town, something the residents of Mullaby have never forgiven her for. The anger over Dulcie’s transgression has lasted for years, and now that Emily is in town, it seems the people of Mullaby are determined to hate her too.

Adolescence is like having only enough light to see the step directly in front of you, and no farther.

Julia went to school with Emily’s mother, and Dulcie teased her mercilessly, but Julia seems to be one of the only people willing to treat Emily as her own person. She goes out of her way to make Emily feel welcome. Julia, of all people has to believe that people can change. She was a troubled teen and an outsider at school. (Think pink hair and a dog collar necklace.) But something happened when she was sixteen that changed her life forever. She stayed away from Mullaby for years, afraid to ever return to the place (and the person) she was before. But her father died and left her his beloved barbeque restaurant, and she returned to her hometown. Julia’s plan is simple: build up her father’s business, sell it for a profit, get back out of town and never look back. Meanwhile, Julia continues her ritual cake baking. She bakes every day. It’s something that she loves to do, but it was a story she heard once that inspired her passion for baking. She hopes that the story was true and that the sweet smell of her cakes can lead the person she’s looking for to her door. She’s been waiting for years, but what Julia doesn’t know is that someone has been waiting on her for years too.

He was like crisp, fresh air. He was self-possessed and proud, but everyone forgave him for that because charm sparkled around him like sunlight.

The Girl Who Chased the Moon is Sarah Addison Allen’s third novel. While I didn’t adore this book quite as much as Garden Spells or The Peach Keeper, I did like it much better than The Sugar Queen. As in all of Allen’s novels, the point of view changes often from one character to another. Like Garden Spells, The Girl Who Chased the Moon has a host of colorful, original characters, and I found myself truly caring about so many of them. As a rule, Allen’s characters are flawed but endearing, and this book was no different. It seems that a touch of mystery is one of Allen’s trademarks as well, and this time she kept me guessing right up until the big reveal. But that might be partly because I was trying to make things more complicated than they really were.

Southern men will hold doors open for you, they’ll hold you after you yell at them, and they’ll hold on to their pride no matter what.

Allen’s stories always have clean, happy endings. They don’t leave the reader worried or guessing about what happened. You would think that would kill the suspense, but somehow I’m still pulled into the story. It’s because I invest in the characters and genuinely worry that they won’t get whatever it is they’re looking for. Allen has a talent for writing characters that want one thing but actually need something very different. I feel the character’s resistance to change, and I believe in it, but I find myself urging them in my mind to take a risk and find out what they’re missing. It’s a beautiful thing to feel that connected to a story. And Knowing that somehow it will all work out is just fine for this hopeless romantic.

Your peers when you’re a teenager will always be the keepers of your embarrassment and regret. It was one of life’s great injustices, that you can move on and be accomplished and happy, but the moment you see someone from high school you immediately become the person you were then, not the person you are now.

More than anything The Girl Who Chased the Moon is about expectations, whether it be living up to them or living them down. It’s a story about how and why people change and how sometimes they’re so busy changing they don’t realize that some parts of them were absolutely perfect already.

“Just think of that room as a universal truth,” Grandpa Vance said. “How we see the world changes all the time. It all depends on our mood.”

I recommend this book to anyone who likes sweet, warm, sentimental stories. The magical elements are very understated (with one exception). Lovers of fantasy will still be enchanted, but those who’d rather stick with reality won’t be turned off. Allen’s stories are much like the exceptional Southern food she is so adept at describing. They’re tantalizing yet comforting, and they leave you craving more.

The edge of her nightgown was fluttering against her legs, and the air around her was charged with energy. She didn’t want to move. She didn’t want to let go of this feeling.