Moonfall: Tales from the Levant by Vanessa Morton
3 stars
Rachav drinks wine from the Moon Temple’s forbidden wine. She doesn’t think anything of it, but it slowly destroys her family and brings everything crashing down. The King orders Rachav to serve at the temple, but she refuses the life. Her twin, Zaron, longs to serve the temple and she decides that they should swap places. Rachav ends up in a different position then what she planned and finds solace with Salma. Everything comes crashing down and the very city Rachav calls home could be destroyed. I’m very conflicted about Moonfall. It’s a strong novel. The writing is good, but there is one huge thing that bogs this novel down. It’s an infodump. There’s nothing but mentions of people, places, and religion. It’s too much! I like that this novel is different from most YA, but this novel isn’t too different from novels that think that the more information it shows the better it’ll be. I wanted a story like the one promised in the summary, but the actual story is nothing like that. AT ALL! Not even close. It’s not a bad thing that the summary is misleading, but the story is very different from what it is hinted at.
The main female character is Rachav. I kind of like Rachav. She shows good qualities, but she doesn’t seem like a person. Rachav seemed like a cutout of a person at times. There was a lot of showing of her actions and no thought as to why. It bothered me.
Kick-Butt Heroine Scale: 5.5
The main male character is Salma. Salma has his own POV, which I wasn’t expecting at all. I do like Salma, but his POV was slumped with political talks and nothings in his daily life. The only interesting part of his POV was the war that took place.
Swoon Worthy Scale: 5
The Villain- I honestly don’t know who is supposed to be the problem in this story. It could be every single one of these characters. There was no exact problem.
Villain Scale: 5
I honestly didn’t like any of Rachav’s family. All of her family were distant and jerks. I did like her father and mother and little sister, but besides that everyone in this family was off. They didn’t seem like a close family or even a family. They felt like people who associated with each other because they had to.
Character Scale: 2
While the characters aren’t strong this novel offers good historical insight. It has wars and I’m sure all readers appreciate wars that have good meanings and just aren’t done for the hell of a fight. The historical aspects are strong and this novel is good for that. I highly recommend this to fans of historical and history novels. It will definitely prove satisfying for them.
Cover Thoughts: Rachav and Zaron are girls with darkish, red hair. Not only that but they live in Jordan, so I’m pretty sure they wouldn’t be blonde and that pale.
Thank you, Netgalley and WEbook Publishing for providing me a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.
3 stars
Rachav drinks wine from the Moon Temple’s forbidden wine. She doesn’t think anything of it, but it slowly destroys her family and brings everything crashing down. The King orders Rachav to serve at the temple, but she refuses the life. Her twin, Zaron, longs to serve the temple and she decides that they should swap places. Rachav ends up in a different position then what she planned and finds solace with Salma. Everything comes crashing down and the very city Rachav calls home could be destroyed. I’m very conflicted about Moonfall. It’s a strong novel. The writing is good, but there is one huge thing that bogs this novel down. It’s an infodump. There’s nothing but mentions of people, places, and religion. It’s too much! I like that this novel is different from most YA, but this novel isn’t too different from novels that think that the more information it shows the better it’ll be. I wanted a story like the one promised in the summary, but the actual story is nothing like that. AT ALL! Not even close. It’s not a bad thing that the summary is misleading, but the story is very different from what it is hinted at.
The main female character is Rachav. I kind of like Rachav. She shows good qualities, but she doesn’t seem like a person. Rachav seemed like a cutout of a person at times. There was a lot of showing of her actions and no thought as to why. It bothered me.
Kick-Butt Heroine Scale: 5.5
The main male character is Salma. Salma has his own POV, which I wasn’t expecting at all. I do like Salma, but his POV was slumped with political talks and nothings in his daily life. The only interesting part of his POV was the war that took place.
Swoon Worthy Scale: 5
The Villain- I honestly don’t know who is supposed to be the problem in this story. It could be every single one of these characters. There was no exact problem.
Villain Scale: 5
I honestly didn’t like any of Rachav’s family. All of her family were distant and jerks. I did like her father and mother and little sister, but besides that everyone in this family was off. They didn’t seem like a close family or even a family. They felt like people who associated with each other because they had to.
Character Scale: 2
While the characters aren’t strong this novel offers good historical insight. It has wars and I’m sure all readers appreciate wars that have good meanings and just aren’t done for the hell of a fight. The historical aspects are strong and this novel is good for that. I highly recommend this to fans of historical and history novels. It will definitely prove satisfying for them.
Cover Thoughts: Rachav and Zaron are girls with darkish, red hair. Not only that but they live in Jordan, so I’m pretty sure they wouldn’t be blonde and that pale.
Thank you, Netgalley and WEbook Publishing for providing me a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.
Sarah, thank you for reading Moonfall and hosting a blog tour stop!
ReplyDeleteThank you for stopping by and providing me the opportunity to!
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