Shooting the Moon

This is another of the books that I picked up from the Book Fair last week simply because I had written it on my list at some point, but I couldn't really remember why I had been interested in it. When I left the next Percy book at school instead of taking it home over the weekend and I needed something to read, I figured that this one was short and would do the trick. And honestly...it took me a little bit to get into. Not because it wasn't interesting or engaging, and not because I didn't bond with the characters, because it is and I did. It took me a little bit to get into it because it isn't really filled with adventure or far-fetched plot devices that surprise and twist and turn, and while I thought that was a shortcoming at first I now disagree. The characters in this book are real, and feel real. Readers get to spend 163 short pages watching a 12-year-old girl deal with the complexities of her brother going away to a controversial war (Vietnam). She watches as her father contradicts so many things that she has spent her whole life believing about him. She finds an escape in a new hobby that also gives her the opportunity to feel much closer to her brother who is so far away. And even though there aren't the complexities of some adventure novels or the latest mind-bending movie, Shooting the Moon is simplistically true, and wholesome in its illustration of the bond of family. By the time I reached the concluding chapter, I had turned from feeling bored and fairly uninterested in the plot to feeling as if I am a part of this fictional family.