Erica's Reviews > Blood Moon

I LOVE that cover! The art on the back is the backside of this front. ;)

The story, though...I did not love it. I did appreciate the main message: Periods are a thing that happen to a lot of people and there's no reason to get all wigged out about them. Yeah, sure, they can be gross and awful. Mine were. But only the person having a period gets to call their own period gross and awful. There's no reason to be making anyone else's period into a thing. Get over it already. Sheesh.
However, because period-shaming was addressed so heavily, the slut-shaming that went with it was barely addressed at all and I felt that was just as important to discuss. It was as if the story was showing that there's nothing wrong with sex acts during menstruation and engaging in such doesn't make a person a slut. (True) However, apparently, all the other reasons to disparage people, specifically young women, in regard to having sex are completely legitimate? #itsonlyblood was the rallying cry without the accompanying #PeopleConsensuallyHaveSexAndEnjoyItWhichIsNormalSoStopYourRidiculousNonsenseAndLetPeopleDoTheirThing
Also, I didn't like Frankie at all. I cannot fathom how she and Harry have stayed friends over the years. Harry's no peach, either, but we're not in her head for this story so it's much easier to dislike her from afar. Theirs is a complicated, long-standing friendship in which Harry is often mean but clearly loves Frankie and Frankie needs Harry but wants Harry to be a different person.
Aaaaand, this is a novel in verse and I just don't like that style of writing...says the whiny woman who recently five-starred other novels in verse.

Obviously, I am not the target audience - I am way too old to have experienced cyber-bullying, I was the quintessential Good Girl up through college, I did not have petty mean-girl fights with my friends, etc. - but I can typically think of people who would enjoy the books I read. I can't think of anyone, in this case. That's not going to stop me from recommending it to youths who don't like reading long books, who want to read about how bullying goes viral and gets out of control, and young women who want more period-positivity in their literature? I'm sure this will hit the mark with the people for whom it's written.

Stories I feel are similar in tone if not in topic: Chaotic Good (cyberbullying), The DUFF: Designated Ugly Fat Friend (teen sexuality and mean girl friendship), The Henna Wars (being a shitty friend)...and there are a few others but now I have forgotten them.