The Shade of the Moon by Susan Beth Pfeffer
My rating: 2/5 cats
so this book takes place a whopping 4 years after the moon got all close to the earth and started messing things up for everyone. 4 years.
apparently, in the world this book lives in, four years is long enough for everyone to lose their freaking minds and forget how to be human beings. we have entered a bizarre us-v-them realm. some of our friends from the previous books have managed to land themselves in an enclave – a sheltered place for “important” people, like doctors and engineers and suchlike. they are known as “clavers.”the rest of the people live on the outskirts, and are known as “grubs.” these are laborers, and people with phd’s in philosophy – you know, useless people. then there are teachers and people like that, who are neither one nor the other. the distinctions are never really detailed in any satisfying way, so i guess it’s not important. (???) all you need to know is that many of the grubs work as domestic help to the clavers and commute to work, breathing the crappy air and walking to their jobs where they are bossed around by teenagers and seem to have no problem doing so.i cannot really think of any philosophy phd-holders who would be content scrubbing floors and being ordered to make food for spoiled teenagers, but a lot can happen in four years, right? everyone is just so happy-slappy going along with this system which makes no sense. and – hey maybe they aren’t. but you would think a book like this would address that – the psychological aspects of people forced to live like this. but – nope! the system works! well-educated people do as they are told without a peep of complaint!
table that for now.
so, jon. he was twelve in the first book, now he is sixteen. his mother, sister, brother, and extended family all live as grubs, while he is safe in the enclave with his stepmother and her child. he managed to get into the enclave on someone else’s ticket, so he is viewed a little beneath the proper clavers, and is known as a “slip.”even though he has close ties to people on the outside, he still refers to them as “grubs,” and thinks they are beneath him. he still engages in sexual activity with “grub girls,” because that’s what they are there for, buying them for crumbs of soap. he treats the help like subhumans. his friends engage in casual rape and violence and vandalism, and he goes along for the ride, even though he knows it will hurt his mother and worsen the crummy life she already lives.he doesn’t even bring her food when his stepmother offers it, which is never even explained. he is just a total brat who has stumbled into conditions better than most and doesn’t even appreciate it, like a little lord, living an actively reprehensible life. but – hey – who cares – he is safe in the enclave! whe!
there also seems to be no paperwork in this new world – no one knows who is related to people on the outside, and no one seems to really be in charge. this is a very lazy dystopia. i understand that this is for younger teens or whatever, but you can’t have it both ways. you can’t have sloppy details and say “well, it’s just for kids, and they don’t need rigor in their books,” but then you can’t have all these dangerous moral behaviors in here and expect that these same kids will see the dubious character growth jon undergoes. you can’t expect kids to have that kind of objectivity, or grasp of nuance. and he doesn’t get that much better, honestly.
but he does get a girl to fall into bewildering insta-love with him!
and this is what i hate the most in YA-novels. there is no reason for them to be in love, and a million reasons for her to NOT be in love with him: he confesses to arson, to rape-y-ness, he lies to her, he grabs her frequently when he is trying to make a point, he tells her he is responsible for the death of his last girlfriend. oh, and also, he “pretends” to try to force her into physical intimacy with him, to drive her away so that she will get over him and not complicate both their lives. but, oh, she is so forgiving! she eventually sees through his ruse and sees the good in him and it is luuuurrrvvvee.
balderdash.
this happens a lot in these not-as-good YA books – the short memories of girls. because love is more important than anything, right? love sees through all the flaws, even the ones that are criminal. ladies – most guys who are dillweeds are just dillweeds; they aren’t masking any heart of gold ulterior motives. don’t learn from these books.
this is a crazy book of misplaced blame and very questionable characters: seriously, jon, you’re gonna get mad at miranda for that?? do you have any self-awareness at all? what a sulky little prick.
i wanted to smack him the whole time, even at the end. maybe especially at the end.
i have liked each book in the series a little bit less than the one that came before. and this one is an all-time-low.
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this book is “for ages 12 and up”
gather round, kiddies and listen to a tale where it’s okay to slap the help, because “it’s not battery,” and if a girl doesn’t put out when you try to force her, and she later dies when her terror of you prevents your saving her, well, shrug – her fault, then, innit?
a wonderful book so far.
