The Moon Sisters by Therese Walsh

The Moon Sisters by Therese Walsh – 336 pages

Book Blurb:

After their mother’s probable suicide, sisters Olivia and Jazz are figuring out how to move on with their lives. Jazz, logical and forward-thinking, decides to get a new job, but spirited, strong-willed Olivia, who can see sounds, taste words, and smell sights, is determined to travel to the remote setting of their mother’s unfinished novel to say her final goodbyes and lay their mother’s spirit to rest. Though they see things very differently, Jazz is forced by her sense of duty to help Olivia reach her goal. Bitter and frustrated by the attention heaped on her sunny sister whose world is so unique, Jazz is even more upset when they run into trouble along the way and Olivia latches to a worldly train-hopper. Though Hobbs warns Olivia that he’s a thief who shouldn’t be trusted, he agrees to help with their journey. As they near their destination, the tension builds between the two sisters, each hiding something from the other, and they will finally be forced to face everything between them and decide what is really important.

My Review: 4.5 stars

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I adored this book. It’s a study on sisters and the love/hate relationship some share. It’s a study on light vs. dark, which is symbolized throughout the book. It’s a study on family and on love, loyalty vs. truth. The characters were written so richly that I could picture and even smell them with ease. I love the concept of giving one sister synesthesia. It heightened the level of description for the reader. This book was a feast of literary senses! Surrounding the girls’ mission was the tattooed train hopper Hobbs, who ‘tasted like tomorrow’ and kept the plot moving with a mysterious element. Highly recommend.

Quotes I liked:

If you live your whole life hoping and dreaming the wrong things, she said, what does that mean about your whole life?”

– “I asked her once what made her kiss him, and she said it was two things. The first was his eyes; they were big pools of blue, bright and happy to meet her. The second was the taste of him when she bit into his shoulder. He tasted, she said, like tomorrow. If that’s not love, I don’t know what is.”

– “Should’ve tasted like unsent letters and unfinished stories. Like a ghost breath on the mirror.”

– “Hope was a powerful thing. Difficult to risk.”

– “Overly dramatic and self-pitying. That’s me right now. Unfit company for even a paper father.”

– “Anything’s better than facing the void left by all that absence.”

– “What I did know–what took me twenty-two years to learn– was that life was what you made of it. Perception was everything. And lying to yourself wasn’t always a bad thing.”