Keeping the Moon by Sarah Dessen Review! | ft. disappointed yet entertained me

Hi friends! I have been procrastinating this review for a while, mainly because I don’t really have very many thoughts haha. But of course, that was a mistake because now I’ve forgotten even more of what I was originally going to say. I’m a mess.

While her mother, aerobics queen Kiki Sparks, spends the summer touring Europe, fifteen-year-old Colie Sparks is stuck in sleepy Colby, North Carolina. But she’s not complaining. For one thing, her Aunt Mira is a sweet, laid-back eccentric; for another, no one knows that back home in Charlotte Colie is seen as a formerly-fat “golf-course slut,” the school scapegoat. Then, by fate or by accident, Colie lands a waitressing job, where she meets Morgan and Isabel. The two wisecracking–and wise–20something waitresses help her turn her life around, and realize the potential that has been there all along.

In general? I kind of enjoyed it. By far my favorite Dessen romance that I’ve read so far, and the setting was amazing! But the main character was ridiculously annoying. Only I am allowed to be annoying when reading, thank you very much.

As I said, the setting was fantastic! We moved into this little summer-y town near the beach, and the main character gets a job at a restaurant. It was like I was plopped into this cute dreamy town where 90% of the inhabitants are prejudiced as all heck. But we’ll talk about those people later.

On to the people I actually liked! Morgan and Isabel were hilarious. Did each of them have problems? Yes. Morgan stayed in this clearly terrible relationship, and Isabel said some things that had me going “ooh girl you’d better apologize. That kind of talk isn’t going to fly here”. But I loved how the friendships developed, and all the sass these girls brought to the table.

and Norman, my adorable artistic hippie child.

He was so sweet and weird! To be honest, he kind of got the short end of the straw in the romance department. He was constantly doing thoughtful things for everyone, and hardly ever said a bad word about anybody*. Also, Aunt Mira was such a campaigner for self-confidence, I loved her! She was fat and she didn’t care. She called herself fat, and she did it loud and proud. I honestly wish that there was more representation like that in YA!

*unlike almost everyone else cough cough

Yeah…our main character Colie was kind of wishy-washy. One day she’d be all like “I miss the days when Mom and I didn’t care so much about our weight” and the next she’d literally be judging someone for their own weight! Of course, she wasn’t the only one, because I’m pretty sure all the townspeople have a secret meeting every Friday night where they discuss new ways to make fun of people who don’t fit the mold.

As much as I liked Morgan and Isabel, sometimes their characters flip-flopped quite a bit. Morgan seemed to be the voice of reason at times, but at others she was more ignorant than I am*. Isabel’s character arc also didn’t line up with some of her actions. I won’t spoil anything but several of the reveals of her character later on in the story don’t match with how she acted earlier in the book.

*fun fact: i just had an epiphany the other day in which i realized that s/o does not in fact stand for soulmate, but rather significant other. maybe i’m too much of a romantic for my own good

And while the romance was my favorite so far of all of Dessen’s novels, it was mainly because Norman was too pure and sweet for this world. The relationship between him and Colie had very little on-page development, which led to it feeling a bit rushed.

And that’s it! Objectively, it wasn’t great but I had fun reading it! Hopefully review this made sense and didn’t feel like smooshed together thoughts haha. Have you read this??? What are some books that have good plus-size rep???