Beneath a Meth Moon

How does a nice, popular, pretty cheerleader from a loving family become a homeless meth head? All it takes is the wrong boy and a past hurt that hasn't healed. This is Laurel's story, told with ache and beauty by one of the most talented authors writing today.

I expected more violence and gore, but the story is almost gentle in its tragedy. Laurel slowly but surely slips into this awful life. I just kept thinking, "Oh my God, this is how it happens," because it's always been hard for me to wrap my head around good kids from good families becoming drug addicts and runaways. Reading this book made me see and understand how it's possible, how it happens every day.

BTW, this was a really great audiobook. The narrator really brought Laurel show more to life and it was the perfect length for an audiobook: 3 CDs. show less

Narrated by Cassandra Campbell. In the wake of her mother and grandmother's deaths during Hurricane Katrina, Laurel succumbs to meth addiction--the "moon"--when her new boyfriend introduces her to the drug. Readers seeking a lurid account of drug addiction will be disappointed. This is Jacqueline Woodson after all and so Laurel's story is much more poetic, with an affectionate focus on her relationships such as with her father; her best friend Kaylie; Moses, the mural artist who saves Laurel; and her beloved grandmother M'lady. Campbell effectively voices the wretchedness of Laurel at her lowest, giving the audio version a sense of despair that may not be so vivid in print.

I liked this book. It was a quick read, and I loved how the writing style reflects Laurel's state of mind. Laurel's story is told in brief, halting flashes, jumping from past to present. I really felt like it was written in moments between her highs -- small moments of lucidity when she wasn't feeling the effects of meth. And then, there was a dreamy, almost ethereal quality to the language, which made the narrative seem like Laurel was in-between states. Not quite high, not quite grounded in reality. I thought it was perfect for a journal of a girl who is trying to break her addiction and start a new life.

The story Laurel tells is heart-breaking, and I love how Woodson is able to bring together recent events to tell a story that some show more teenagers can really relate to. Beneath a Meth Moon tackles the after-effects of Hurricane Katrina and paints a small picture of the suffering and devastation that followed the event. It also goes into the widespread use of meth among teenagers, and how their lives are ruined by their addiction. And despite these horrific and depressing events, she turns it into a hopeful message. Life goes on. We are able to go on with it by just putting one foot in front of the other and getting through bad times step by step.

However, while I appreciated the link between the style and Laurel's frame of mind, I would have liked there to have been more development. In the flashes we get of Laurel's life in a new town, I don't feel as if she has moved on. I don't feel like she has a best friend, or even get the sense of a boyfriend from T-Boom. The way she started meth confused me. T-Boom held out a meth-covered finger to her and told her to sniff. Why did she? Why didn't she just leave the guy? What was going on in her mind while she did this? We don't know. Laurel never tells us. And while theorizing would make for good discussion in a book club or classroom, I would have liked a little more in terms of why and how, besides the fact that she is depressed about the deaths of her mother and grandmother. I didn't need a lot, but something that hints as to why she felt compelled to start meth in the first place.

Still, I do think this book has a lot going for it. It's a quick read and can be used in a classroom as a perfect source of metaphor, symbolism, and style. But maybe supplement it with a lesson on the dangers and effects of meth, because while Laurel's life does fall apart, the health consequences are briefly mentioned. And with the dreamy quality of the narrative, I'm not sure the second-hand stories of death have enough of an impact. show less

Laurel has been through a lot in her 15 years. She, her father and her younger brother lost her mother and grandmother when they wouldn't leave Pass Christian when Hurricane Katrina came. They've moved to a small Midwest town after living with her aunt for two years in Jackson.

To say she misses her mother and grandmother, M'Lady, is understatement. Their loss is a deep pain that is with her always. It's not enough that she dearly loves her baby brother, who was three months old when they left Pass Christian, and that he deeply loves her. It's not enough that she adores and respects her father, a good, quiet, God-loving man. It's not enough that she has found a good friend, Kaylee, who is the reader to her writer (and Woodson's show more recounting of their dialogue in this regard is a gorgeous homage to the joys of reading and writing).

It's when the cute boy on the basketball team, the one with a tattoo of gumbo, kisses her and offers her meth, that she thinks she has found something that is enough. Meth dulls the pain of loss, makes her giddy and makes her want more. And more. And more.

Woodson tells Laurel's story by weaving back and forth in time without preaching, but by showing what Laurel is thinking and feeling throughout her descent into drug addiction and living on the street, through attempts at rehab and believing she can handle it. Laurel is fortunate that even on the street, she meets a wonderful person. Moses is a teenager who is paid by grieving parents to paint portraits of their meth angels, the teens they lost to meth, on buildings.

For both Laurel's story and Woodson's strong, lyrical, heart-deep writing, BENEATH A METH MOON is a very good book for teens to discover. The publisher recommends for ages 12 and up; it's going into my middle school library next to Woodson's other books. show less

Teaching middle school, I'm always a little edgy about ordering substance abuse related fiction. This one was a stellar purchase, though. Laurel has lost her beloved mother and grandmother who were killed during Hurricane Katrina because her grandmother refused to leave her coastal Mississippi home. Laurel's father moves the family to central Iowa, when they try to pick up the pieces. Starting a new high school is stressful enough, but Laurel seems to find a place with the cheerleading squad, her new friend Kaylee, and her basketball star boyfriend T-Boom. T-Boom introduces her to the moon... crystal meth. He cooks it and sells it out of an abandoned house, and once he gives Laurel a taste of the moon, she's hooked. It's not just the show more incredible good feeling she got the first time -- when all her sadness seemed to float away and suddenly the world seemed full of possibility. It's the itching, creepy crawling sensations she gets when it wears off... and if she could just have a little more, it would all go away. As her life spirals downward, the cravings for meth replace everything for Laurel, including her father and her four-year-old brother. She is reduced to a homeless beggar, living in the dark unheated back room of an abandoned hardware store in the next town. When she meets Moses, she is at the point where she can't bear to even look at her reflection in windows... she has that filthy, emaciated, malnourished meth user look to her. Moses sees a spark of something in her, though, and as he paints memorials to other young people who died from meth use, he gently encourages Laurel to see that she's not completely lost yet. Powerful writing that shows the curse of this particular drug epidemic realistically, but also hopefully. Absolutely amazing, for 8th grade and up. show less

I have to say that this book was fantastic. Woodson was poetic as always, and yet she pulled no punches in writing about the effects of meth. The juxtaposition of such beautiful writing about something so ugly was amazing. I particularly liked the back story for the protagonist, the idea that the tragedy she faced with hurricane Katrina was what threw her life into the whirlwind that made her susceptible to meth. The destruction of her family and her younger brother's unfailing love were particularly touching. My eighth grade students are eating this book up and hopefully, in the process, learning about the dangers of drugs.

After losing her mother and grandmother to Hurricane Katrina, Laurel, her brother, and her father move to a new town to start over. There she simultaneously falls in love with the co-captain of the basketball team, T-Boom, and meth, or as she likes to call it, �ÛÏthe moon.‰Û As the moon takes over her life, her relationships crumble and she is faced with a decision: to fully embrace her addiction or to fight it.

Woodson deftly handles Laurel‰Ûªs addiction to meth in a way that is accessible to readers 15 and older. While the subject matter is edgy, it is not as explicit as a book about meth addiction might be, therefore readers looking for gritty realism will be disappointed. Instead, Woodson crafts her narrative show more to match the mental state of her heroine: jagged and jumbled, providing only brief flashes that jump between past and present. The disjointed snippets of Laurel‰Ûªs recollections work to form a cohesive whole that ultimately reveals her as a fully realized and relatable character. show less