Moonrise

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I have previously read a book by Sarah Crossan and loved that, so it was the authors name that initially caught my attention and made me want to learn more about the book. With the exception of a disused mine, the forest in which the cats live is based largely on the New Forest. As we approach the halfway mark in the novel, Joe has to ask his brother once and for all whether or not he did the crime he has been charged with and Ed is furious with him and refuses to see him for days, which Joe ends up spending with Nell.

The main characters each come from one of four Clans: ThunderClan, RiverClan, ShadowClan, and WindClan. After Greg senior’s death, Paul and Joanna agree to marry, and he becomes head of Masterson Corporation.

They tended to be common four-letter first names for the male characters and slightly better, but still common female character names. When he gets to the prison he is obviously intimidated by the environment but he powers through it for his brother. Sarah Crossan tells a very special story, an incredibly realistic one, and she does so in such a poetical, emotional, and meaningful way that I think I’ll take it and its characters with me for the rest of my life. Society may evolve, but humans are still driven by primal instinct and it is this that drives the narrative.

As we cross into the second half of the novel, Joe is getting to know his brother the best he can in the time that they have left but it isn’t helping Joe other than reminding him that his brother is going to die unless something happens. His novel The Starcrossed was loosely based on his experiences and featured a thinly veiled characterization of his friend and colleague Harlan Ellison. As if that were not enough, the science is a little patchwork; I found myself checking and rechecking the publication date, trying to figure out why, writing in the late 90s, he seems stuck in mid-century physics (perhaps to be consistent with his gender politics? The story provides a sobering look at the ripple effect incarceration has on loved ones and how the justice system treats the poor. The novel is written in verse, which is atypical for a YA novel and potentially alienating to some readers, but the short, fragmented ‘chapters’ make for an ingenious means of telling this story, with the verses serving as snapshots into Joe’s mind and memories.The stepbrother survived, but then was permanently exciled to the moon base because no country on Earth would allow him entry, and anti-nanoboters would be continually trying to kill him.