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Feb 20, 2012

Eileen rated it:

I saw the review for "Beneath a Meth Moon" in the Sunday LA Times, bought the book on a Monday and finished the book on a Tuesday the same week. What a rush from the words of the gifted author, Jacqueline Woodson.

The book is presented in short chapters, giving the feeling of the jumpiness meth induces in its users. The main character, Laurel, calls meth "the moon," because it takes her over the moon beyond her troubles. After losing loved ones in a flood, she thinks More...

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Jan 27, 2012

Jackie rated it:

Since I've started combing the depths of YA fiction I haven't yet read a drug/addiction/disorder book. This is my first, so I'm kind of a newbie. But I have to say that this book is pretty powerful. I've never struggled with a serious addiction, but I've seen enough people succumb to it. One thing I've noticed that holds true across the board is that addiction is the symptom of a different problem or hurt. Although this is pretty dark subject, the book is written with a hopeful tone.

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Jan 26, 2012

Claudia rated it:

I love Woodson's poetry and often recognized lyricism in this book about the horrors of meth addiction. Laurel has already suffered so much...the loss of her beloved grandmother, her mother, and her home. She and her father and brother move to rural Iowa from coastal Mississippi. I can understand Laurel's culture shock, but things seem to be going so well...when she falls for the start basketball player and follows him into regular meth use.

Woodson doesn't honey-coat the effects of a More...

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Jan 22, 2012

Karen rated it:

Laurel's family was living in Pass Christian when a devastating hurricane kills her mother and grandmother who stay behind. After a few years with her aunt, Laurel, her father, and younger brother move to a small town in Iowa. For a while, she is happy. She makes the cheerleading squad and starts to date T-Boom, a basketball player. The sadness of her loss is always with her, so when T-Boom gives her a taste of meth, she quickly gets hooked. Soon, everything else fades into the background. She d More...

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Jan 08, 2012

Mark rated it:

"I celebrated my fifteenth birthday sitting in the rain begging for money. I was living in Donnersville by then. Nights inside that room in back of the hardware store, days walking and begging for money. Always Mama's voice inside my head whispering, "Daneaus don't lie, and they don't steal," so loud and hard that a part of me wanted to scream, "Then I'm not a Daneau anymore!" But scared always that the voice would go away, that her hand on my back, when I was shaking an More...

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Jan 30, 2012

Amanda rated it:

I was disapointed by this book because it jumps around so much. Laurel is struggling to make sense of the loss of her mother and grandmother in Hurricane Katrina and starting a new life years later in Iowa. She makes the cheerleading squad and starts dating the star basketball player who introduces her to "the moon"--meth. This book tries to follow Laurel's spiral into addiction while constantly jumping back to show glimpses of her past. The story jumps around from before Katrina, the More...

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Jan 02, 2012

Sandy rated it:

Like Ellen Hopkins’ writing, this book brings the harsh realities of addiction to teens. Laurel is fifteen and has lost her mother and grandmother to flooding caused by a severe hurricane in the Mississippi/New Orleans area. Overwhelmed with loss, Laurel fills the void with a new boyfriend – the football player T-Bone. He immediately introduces her to meth – or “moon” as he calls it. What begins as a quick high, quickly becomes a serious addiction. Soon Laurel forsakes her family and friends to More...

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Feb 19, 2012

KT rated it:

Woodson has an uncanny ability to tell a deep, serious story with eloquence and economy of language. Here she recounts the struggles of a 15-year-old meth addict, both her emotional and physical pain. On the outside, it appears that Laurel has it all: she's got a loving family, a loyal best friend, a popular boyfriend, and she's just made the cheer-leading team. It's her basketball-playing boyfriend who first introduces her to meth, and she's immediately hooked, not just to the high but to the d More...

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Jan 25, 2012

Grace rated it:

When a devastating hurricane hits the town of Pass Christian that Laurel and her family reside, her mother and grandmother are killed. Laurel, her father, and her brother managed to make it out of town in time to escape the tragedy the storm brought. In the aftermath, Laurel and what's left of her family move to a small town in Iowa where she becomes a cheerleader for her school, makes a new friend, and starts dating one one of the most popular boys on the basketball team, T-boom. She seems to b More...

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Feb 06, 2012

Donna rated it:

Jacqueline Woodson's gentle, lilting narrative style infuses humanity into this first person account of a teenaged girl losing herself to meth. Meth transforms her from a sweet cheerleader to someone on the street the public cannot get away from fast enough. It may take a few pages to lose yourself into the rhythm of how she writes, but once you are pulled in, its hard to leave the story until she deposits you safely back on shore at the end. I appreciated that this story was from a meth user's More...

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Feb 20, 2012

Audrey rated it:

Teen Laurel lost her mother and grandmother in Hurricane Katrina. Struggling to get back on their feet, she moves north with her father and baby brother. There, things are going okay as she joins the cheerleading squad and meets the basketball star, T-Boom. However, T-Boom likes to party, aka do crystal meth, which he calls moon. Laurel gets hooked and winds up living in the streets, doing whatever she can for the next high.

For being a book about such a serious subject as meth addictio More...

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Jan 30, 2012

Jessi rated it:

This short elegy packs a powerful punch with relatively few words. Laurel's stream-of-conscious narrative brings readers into feeling her emotions, into seeing why she has become the addict she is. As she deals with the aftermath of the death of loved ones, she becomes extremely vulnerable and becomes addicted to meth. The narrative chronicles her struggle to get clean for those in her life that she still loves.

This is a beautiful, poetic treatment of a sensitive and ugly topic. Hope More...

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Feb 20, 2012

Sandra rated it:

I really enjoyed this novel. Ultimately about survival, Beneath a Meth Moon takes the reader into the life of a meth addict, and it's not pretty. Meth affects Laurel is such a way that she no longer looks like herself and she doesn't feel like herself either. All she can think about it getting her next high. Beneath a Meth Moon was very eye opening to the word of meth addiction.

This was an extremely short novel, clocking in at under two hundred pages, and was a quick read as a resu More...

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Dec 29, 2011

Laura rated it:

The meth epidemic hasn't hit my neck of the woods, so it was interesting to read this book with that as its focus. At times it was a little difficult to follow as we travel through three time threads: Laurel's life in Pass Christian just before/after Katrina, her life as she moves to Gilead, and the present. Because it's only a two-year spread, there's not that much to differentiate the threads except context.

Laurel lived in Pass Christian with her parents, her brother Jesse Jr.; h More...

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Jan 24, 2012

Holly rated it:

This book is a very quick read and I read it in one night. It describes the life of a girl who recently loses her mom and grandma in a hurricane. When she moves to a new small town the depressing of her mom still lurks in the back of her mind. When she meets T-Boom, her life gets turned upside down by the moon aka meth. Meth soon controls her life and she soon can't live without it. I personally didn't like this book that much because the plot was boring and also a little confusing at times. I u More...

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Nov 10, 2011

Erin rated it:

There's a line in this very book that might capture my feelings exactly: "I like to read. . . . A hundred and ten books in my house and counting. I read all of them. Some sucked, but I kept reading, hoping they'd turn good at some point. They didn't though. But you don't give up on something—"

I read this book in about two hours, max. It's fairly insubstantial. I will say that for a title that gives it all away it's not as bleak as I'd been imagining, and all told nothing bad More...

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Nov 25, 2011

Jennifer rated it:

This is different than Woodson's other books. It tells the story of Laurel's addiction to meth and her family's past on the Mississippi per-hurricane destruction. Laurel is not a deep character, and I wanted to see her developed more. The book had Woodson's usual lyrical qualities as it moved from past to present and represented dialogue with italics. I do think, however, that it tried too hard for Christian allusions with towns named Christian Pass and Galilee and with a saving character named More...

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Feb 16, 2012

Terrie rated it:

When I saw this book in Booklist magazine with a starred review, I knew I had to read it. Several people whom I love, in my family, continue to struggle with this evil addiction. My next-door neighbor was murdered because of it.

In BENEATH A METH MOON, we watch 15 year old Laurel, sink into the hell of meth addiction. After losing her mother and grandmother in Hurricane Katrina, she moves with her father and little brother to a new town. There she becomes a member of the cheer squa More...

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Jan 28, 2012

Book Twirps rated it:

When a devastating hurricane rips through her small Mississippi town, Laurel's mother and grandmother stay behind to ride out the storm and end up dead. Laurel, her father and brother move to Iowa to start over, and things begin to look up for her. She makes the cheerleading squad and begins to date T-Boom, one of her school's star basketball players. Even though things are looking up for Laurel, she can't get over the loss of her family members, so when T-Boom offers her some moon (meth), she r More...

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Feb 09, 2012

Britta rated it:

This book was not what I was hoping for, to say the least. I understood where the writer was coming from in terms of the writing style, but I found it confusing and not as powerful as possible with such a huge subject.

In essence, the novel is the story of Laurel had become addicted to Meth. This is a huge topic and very important, yet the impact of it on Laurel's life is not portrayed in a way that made me care. The story is told from Laurel's point of view; memories are told in More...

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Jan 27, 2012

Hayden rated it:

I don't read a lot of addiction fiction, but I think this one is probably better than most. Laurel lost her mother and grandmother to Katrina. When she and her father and baby brother begin a new life, she's thrilled that the captain of the basketball team shows an interest in her. But he also introduces her to meth. Nothing unpredictable, but good strong writing and a believable protagonist. This was the one book that got snatched up fast at a visit to an Interagency school earlier this we More...

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Jan 16, 2012

Tasha rated it:

Laurel survived Hurricane Katrina, but unfortunately her mother and grandmother died in the storm. With her father and little brother, they moved away from the destruction and loss to start a new life. Laurel made new friends, joined the cheerleading squad, and hooked up with one of the coolest boys on the basketball team, T-Boom. T-Boom was the person who introduced her to meth. The meth erased all of Laurel’s needs, all of her grief. Before she knew it, she was addicted and she had lost h More...

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Nov 26, 2011

Dana rated it:

It was so powerfully written that I was literally physically ill while reading the story of Laurel. Wow!

"...the best stories come from other people's stories" (24).

"While you're living...it's the Rocks in your life that will stand beside you. Your words, your friends. Your family" (58).

"I like the way happy looks on you" (78).

"A night where the present was the same. But the past was different" (81).

Su

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Nov 29, 2011

Cathy rated it:

An aching portrayal of the descent into drug use, all too common in today's culture. The pain of loss, the uncertainty of new beginnings, and the attention of a popular boy all contribute to an ache that is eased by the moon, or meth. Laurel's story is heartbreaking, Woodsen's characters authentic, and the voices of drug-addicted Laurel and T-Boom tragic.

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Jan 26, 2012

Kricket rated it:

a teen grieving her mother & grandmother falls into meth addiction when her new boyfriend introduces her to "the moon." a quick read, and probably very realistic. the writing style and overarching sense of despair were not my personal cup of tea, but i would recommend it to fans of ellen hopkins.

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Jan 25, 2012

Ramarie rated it:

This book made me cry, just the sad journey back from a taste of meth that becomes an addiction. Granted, the meth suppresses Laurel's grief over the loss of her mom and grandma in hurricane Katrina but thanks to a loving family and Moses, she can begin again. Very emotional read.

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Feb 17, 2012

Jo marked it as to-read

Totally read the author as Jacqueline Wilson and thought "Jeez, she's branching out a bit."

7 comments like (3 people liked it)

Feb 09, 2012

Alicia rated it:

Beautiful prose. Woodson tells the story in just the right number of pages. I feel like YA authors sometimes feel obligated to write a gigantic novel nowadays, and it's not always necessary. Woodson tells Laurel's story with a richness. Each character has a soul. Stories involving drug addiction often become exaggerrated or didactic, but Laurel's story is neither. It is real, painful and hopeful.

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Dec 03, 2011

Katie rated it:

Woodson's writing is both haunting and uplifting. Bravo!

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Feb 22, 2012

Dennis rated it:

wow! Can Woodson win Margaret A. Edwards twice?

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