The Moonstone Girls - Brooke Skipstone

Author: Brooke Skipstone

Genre: Historical Fiction, Coming of Age, LGBTQ+

Rating: 1.5 stars.

In a Nutshell: This could have been outstanding. It ends up a disaster. Wouldn’t recommend this to anyone. This isn’t a review but a rant.

Story Synopsis:

Seventeen year old Tracy feels that she “should have been born a boy” and she knows she is a lesbian. Her brother Spencer is a closet homosexual. With a homophobic father and a judgemental society, life in 1960s Texas isn’t easy for the siblings. When they are both caught with their gay partners, troubles begin, leading to devastating consequences. All the while, the only hope Tracy has to strengthen herself is to run away to a camp in Alaska and she begins plotting her life choices towards this goal.

The story comes to us in the first person perspective of Tracy.

Where the book worked for me:

🌹 The audiobook narrator was great. She voiced the individual characters well and gave them a proper personality. (Though I didn’t understand her decision of voicing Tracy in a different accent from the rest of her family. That said, were it not for the 12-hour-long audiobook, this would have been a DNF without any doubt. )

🌹 The prologue was fabulous. (At least when I read it. Reading some other reviews told me that it had a factual error. Oh well!)

🌹 I love music, so the parts related to song-writing, the piano and the guitar were pleasing.

🌹 A small part of the content means well, and is written well. This is especially related to the lines about accepting yourself as you are.

🌹 The strong sibling connection between Tracy and Spencer is the best part of the story.

🌹 I love the cover and the title. (The fact that neither matches the story is another thing.)

Where the book could have worked better for me:

☠ The writing is atrocious. (This is the first review where I have needed to use such an extreme adjective.) If I had the digital copy, I would have used the Kindle search feature to locate the numerous body parts and their count. It doesn’t stop at the usual cheeks-eyes-heart. You have a whole assortment of anatomy: thigh, arm, neck, ear, nose, stomach (I think ‘stomach’ is the winner in quantity!), foot, toe, vulva, armpit,... Jeez! Hardly a couple of paras in every chapter go by without any mention of body parts.

☠ We all know that a first person narration in a YA book comes with a fair bit of rambling. But when 80% of the narrative comprises internal monologues, I can honestly say that it was overdone.

☠ As a historical book with an openly lesbian main character, there was so much potential to show life for the LGBTQ community in that era. The prologue is so powerful that I was looking forward to an exceptional story. Unfortunately, the plot soon regresses into a lust fest, full of details of physical attractions and sexual activities, as if the only thought a homosexual person has is that of sex. The entire first half is infuriating for this reason because there are no feelings explored except for the physical. The second half is just a little better. I wish there were more emotional depth to the content.

☠ The title, the cover, and the blurb gave me expectations of reading a story about a lesbian girl who travels to Alaska as a boy. This doesn’t happen until well into the second half. “The Moonstone Girls” of the title don’t come together until chapter 21 of a book with 24 chapters (not counting the prologue and epilogue.) The pre-Alaska and in-Alaska segments feel like two separate books.

☠ The Goodreads blurb isn’t a synopsis but a summary of the entire book.

☠ Tracy should have won my heart. Instead, she ended up making me want to shake her senseless. I haven’t read such a self-obsessed, judgemental, conniving and rude character in ages. First person narration of Tracy, ergo, goodbye any enjoyment!

☠ Tracy’s brother Spencer and her mother are the closest to being likeable characters in this mess of a story, but they are not sketched consistently. Some parts are outstanding, the rest just clichéd. The rest of the characters are so hackneyed that I wonder if they even exist in real life.

☠ With the main protagonist being seventeen, this is officially YA fiction. Practically, I don’t understand how this was published for the YA audience. Underage drinking, underage driving, cussing, extensive sex scenes,… Not a single element suits most of the YA audience. Why don’t authors remember that the YA age range is from 12-18? This might have worked better as New Adult fiction. (That’s a genre I detest, but let’s not go there in this rant.)

☠ For the first time ever, I read about a character not just going to pee but talking about the actual process in detail. If this had happened once, I would have let it go. But no, it happens multiple times over the course of the book. Good writing leaves at least a little to the imagination. This one killed my senses. Some of the scenes felt like they were present only to titillate or scandalise; they weren’t at all important to the main narrative.

☠ There are so many absurd statements in the book. Sample this: “A gay man can't be around naked men without getting an erection.” Say what!?!? What a ridiculous generalisation! (Note that this statement isn’t made by a homophobic character but by Tracy, justifying why her brother shouldn’t join the army. *eye roll*)

☠ The book tries to cover many important themes – the futility of war, racial discrimination, gender discrimination, sexual discrimination, body shaming and self-acceptance, homophobia,… All good intentions. But some of these themes feel forced into the writing. The rest are so OTT that it is impossible to accept them. I also hate it when authors write feminism by indulging in male-bashing. True feminism strives for equality, not superiority. The book also looks down on Blacks and assumes that their lives were easier than that of the LGTBTQ community. No way is this comparison justified!

☠ The main story is written as a flashback from Feb 2020 under the lockdown when Tracy is in her seventies and wants to tell the story of her life to her family and later to the general public. This leads to some foreshadowing in a few chapters, most of which don’t stir interest. Also, pray help me understand: why would anyone want to include extensive information about their peeing in a memoir meant for the public eye?!?!?

The skew of my feedback ought to tell you my recommendation. My eyes rolled, my ears spewed steam, my teeth gritted themselves, my stomach felt queer (no pun intended!), my pancreas started sobbing, and my gallbladder went into an overdose of bile production while reading this audiobook.

1.5 stars - 0.5 for the writing intention, 1 star for the narration.

I received a free copy of the audiobook as a promotional offer. This review is voluntary and contains my honest opinion about the audiobook.