Critics' Opinion:
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Published Feb 2012
192 pages
Genre: Literary Fiction
Publication Information
Laurel Daneau has moved on to a new life, in a new town, but inside she's still reeling from the loss of her beloved mother and grandmother after Hurricane Katrina washed away their home. Laurel's new life is going well, with a new best friend, a place on the cheerleading squad, and T-Boom, co-captain of the basketball team, for a boyfriend. Yet Laurel is haunted by voices and memories from her past.
When T-Boom introduces Laurel to meth, she immediately falls under its spell, loving the way it erases, even if only briefly, her past. But as she becomes alienated from her friends and family, she becomes a shell of her former self, and longs to be whole again. With help from an artist named Moses and her friend Kaylee, she's able to begin to rewrite her story and start to move on from her addiction.
Incorporating Laurel's bittersweet memories of life before and during the hurricane, this is a stunning novel by one of our finest writers. Jacqueline Woodson's haunting - but ultimately hopeful - story is beautifully told and one readers will not want to miss.
Ages 14+
"Starred Review. A moving, honest and hopeful story." - Kirkus
"Starred Review. ...Woodson maintains tension throughout, making it abundantly clear how easy it is to succumb to meth and how difficult it is to recover from it." - Publishers Weekly
"This is must read for teens but also for those of us who work with and care about them. Woodson's lyricism and use of interlocking flashbacks in this first person narrative does not sugarcoat the addiction, its effects, or the aftermath." - Reading.org
"Beneath a Meth Moon is a hard book to read, because it is all so real; it's easy to imagine this young girl on the street and addicted. ...Woodson doesn't give anyone any reason to have romantic illusions about what it is like to be an addict... [she] does, however, give the reader hope." - The Examiner
This information about Beneath a Meth Moon was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Photo: Marty Umans
Jacqueline Woodson is the bestselling author of more than two dozen award-winning books including the 2016 New York Times-bestselling National Book Award finalist for adult fiction, Another Brooklyn. Among her many accolades, Woodson is a four-time National Book Award finalist, a four-time Newbery Honor winner, a two-time NAACP Image Award Winner, and a two-time Coretta Scott King Award Winner. Her New York Times-bestselling memoir, Brown Girl Dreaming, received the National Book Award in 2014. Woodson is also the 2018-2019 National Ambassador for Young People's Literature and recipient of the 2018 Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award and the 2018 Children's Literature Legacy Award. In 2015, she was named the Young People's Poet Laureate by the Poetry Foundation. She lives with her family in New...
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