{Blog Tour} Valley of the Moon - Bronwyn Archer (Review)

Valley of the Moon
by Bronwyn Archer
Publisher: Bronarch Books
Release Date: April 13th 2016

Genre: Young Adult

My Rating: 3/5

Synopsis:

There’s just one semester left at the Briar School for Girls in Sonoma, CA. But it will take more than straight As for Lana Goodwin to survive . . . 

***

Senior year is not going well for 17-year-old Lana Goodwin. Her father’s vintage car business is about to crash and burn, the nicest (and cutest) teacher at school was fired under a cloud of scandal, and her hot sort-of boyfriend may or may not have something big to hide.

She’s also totally over being the class pauper. It’s bad enough her dad was briefly married to the head of the board—the rich, cruel, impeccably groomed Ramona Crawford. What’s worse is going to school with her vindictive ex-stepsister, who never misses an opportunity to make her life hell. Not ever.

It also happens to be the tenth anniversary of her mother’s suicide. No one knows why Annie Goodwin jumped off the Golden Gate Bridge the day after Christmas. She didn’t leave a note. She wasn’t sick. Even Lana’s father can’t explain it. Ten years later, someone—or something—starts sending her clues about her mother’s past.

Before Lana can escape to college, she finds herself in a life-or-death race to uncover her mother’s long-buried secrets. 

Can she claim her birthright before her future and her life are snatched away?

Valley of the Moon is a modern-day fairy tale with some intense themes.

This book follows Lana who lost her mother a few years ago to an apparent suicide.  Lana lives with her father who owns a vintage car business.  Lana's father did remarry, but got divorced.  Lana is just trying to get through high school and move to college.  She works really hard to keep her grades up.

I love Lana as a character she has already gone through so much when we meet her that she comes off as a very strong individual.   Lana losing her mother at a young age was something she had to struggle to overcome.  She thought she got a new family when her dad remarried, but she was able to see that as what it was.  Lana does a great job as the narrator of the story.  She keeps the story moving along.  Also, Lana does a great job of creating her mother as a character in the book.  She is able to use flashbacks to help create an image of Lana's mother.

The ending of this book is great.  So many different details come together and end up making complete sense.  I do still have a lot of questions, but they leave me wanting to read the sequel.

Things I could see improved in the book was the story itself.  I felt like there were portions of the book that just dragged on and could have been skipped.  The ending of the book is very action packed and stuff happens very quickly.  During the book the author drops hints, but doesn't explain things fully so you are left wondering what Lana is talking about in regards to her "sister" or her father's second marriage ending.   At the end we get a lot of answers to questions and it felt like it came on to quickly almost.  If we could have gotten more important details sprinkled in sooner I think the story would have been much better.

Another issue I had with the book was that I felt like rape was sort of glanced over in the book.  I felt like the author brought this into the book, but didn't really develop it well.  I felt like I was yelling at the character because being 18 years old and knowing something is wrong you need to report it.   I guess because of the police situation she was scared, but there is more than 1 office on a police force.   Also, there was another attack with a boy as well that was more or less glanced over, those things should never be taken lightly.  

I would suggest this as a nighttime read before bed.  It is easy to follow along in the story.  It does pick up the pace significantly towards the end and does become more challenging to put down. 

I received a copy of this book from The Fantastic Flying Book Club in exchange for an honest review.  This does not effect my opinion of this book.

Follow the Valley of the Moon by Bronwyn Archer Blog Tour and don't miss anything! Click on the banner to see the tour schedule.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Bronwyn Archer is a young-adult author, digital media copywriter, and mother to several children, last time she counted.

At her all-girls high school, Bronwyn discovered a love of writing and the importance of a good fake ID. The only sport she was good at was boogie-boarding, but she decided to hang up her board after a terrifying close encounter with a seven-foot blue shark in the Santa Monica Bay.

She still gets nervous in black-bottomed swimming pools.

After graduating from the University of Pennsylvania with degrees in English and Art History, she moved to Paris, where she edited a magazine for expatriates. After failing to become the next Hemingway—despite putting in many hours at the Ritz Hotel’s Hemingway Bar—she moved back to the States, where she developed a semi-successful career in New York and Los Angeles as a copywriter for ad agencies and companies like HBO and Disney.

Now Bronwyn writes fiction and raises children. She’s up to two rescue mutts and four kids, which makes her a semi-freak in this neck of the woods, but she’s learned that once you decide to live your life your way, everything else gets a little easier.

Besides writing and expertly avoiding baskets of laundry that need folding, Bronwyn loves movies from the 80s, comedy, Disneyland (sorry WDW), the paintings of Winslow Homer and Maxfield Parrish, coffee, Paris, Oscar Wilde, hot sauce, the Christmas season, Thai street food, making things with felt, and the smell of freshly printed books.

She is still searching for her own “signature fragrance,” which she’ll know when she finds it.