Mundie Moms

Saturday, February 19, 2011

Book Review- Red Moon Rising

By Peter Moore
Published by Disney Hyperion
Released on February 8th, 2011
Source- ARC from publisher for review

Being only half-vamp in a high school like Carpathia Night makes you awhole loser. But Danny Gray manages to escape the worst of the specists at his school. Thanks to genetic treatments he had as an infant, most people assume Danny's other half is human. Which is a good thing.

Ever since the development of synthetic blood – SynHeme – vamps have become society’s elite, while wulves like his father work menial jobs and live in bad neighborhoods. Wulves are less than second class citizens; once a month they become inmates, forced to undergo their Change in dangerous government compounds.

For Danny, living with his vamp mother and going to a school with a nearly all-vamp student body, it’s best to pretend his wulf half doesn’t even exist. But lately Danny's been having some weird symptoms — fantastic night vision; a keener-than-usual sense of smell; and headaches, right around the full moon.

Even though it's easy to be in denial, it's hard to ignore evidence. There's only a month until the next few moon, and Danny's time is running out.

Peter Moore speaks to adolescents in a voice that will have them laughing, set in a world that will get them thinking (quoted from Goodreads).

Red Moon Rising has a great premise, as Peter Moore adds a very different spin on Vampires & Werewolves when he makes his main character Danny, a half breed-half vampire and half wolf. Now mix that into a society where vampires rank supreme and wolves are at the bottom of the food chain, so to speak, and you have a book that has some teen angst and a lot of conflict.

In the middle of a deeply heated battle/segregation between vampires and werewolves is a half breed, Danny, who's half werewolf and half vampire, something completely unheard of. Danny's someone I think teens will enjoy reading about, as he's relatable and has a great voice. He's funny, honest and it's nice reading a book from a guys point of view. Like many teens, Danny has challenges and choices to make. On top of that he has a lot of conflict with his family, with the hot shot vampire at school and himself.

Being a half vamp, half wolf isn't easy at all for Danny, especially when at first he can't figure out what's going on and why he's having all these weird changes. Being a wolf you're treated like a low life in society and are required to register and turn themselves in during the full moon, something Danny's wolf father doesn't want him to do. Mixed into this is Danny's light romance with the human girl Juliet. He has also has best friend Claire, a vampire who's there to help him and support him. I liked that the two of them are not in love with each other and truly are just friends, as Claire is gay. An underlining tone with the story is being accepting of who are, which I think is a great message for teens, as Claire and Danny work to over come their struggles, they are completely accepting of each other.

Overall I had some problems with the plot and a lack of character development which made it hard for me to really like the story as much as I wanted to. I felt like the story stalled a few times through out the book, and I could have done without the overly done pop culture references, which Moore puts his own spin on. In the end, I was left with more questions than I had answers for. I felt like the end was rushed and things were left out of the story. If there's a sequel planned, than I can understand why, though I'd still feel unsatisfied with the ending. Though I was left feeling I wanted to like the book more than I did, I think teens will like Red Moon Rising as it's a paranormal coming of age story with a light romance, humor, acceptance, and action, and one I'd recommend to older teen readers.

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