Joe and Ed are brothers.  But they have been apart for most of their lives.  Joe lives a hardscrabble life in Virginia with his sister, Angela.  Their aunt cares for them or at least puts on appearances since their alcoholic/drug-abusing mom took off.  Ed is a different story.  Ed took off too.  But now Ed is on death row for the murder of a police officer in Texas.  A murder he swears he didn’t commit…even though he confessed.  

Joe decides to go and spend the last month of Ed’s life with him in Texas at Ed’s request.  But Joe is only 17, so add on top of having a death row inmate as a brother, that he must get a job, find a place to live, and support himself through this emotionally charged time.  Joe does it though.  He’s tough.  He’s smart.  He’s resourceful.  But he finds himself wondering, did Ed really do it?

Moonrise is a thought-provoking book.  It’s going to really make you think about capital punishment, incarceration, the judicial system, and the notion of innocent until proven guilty.  This book is a great conversation piece, and I would encourage it as a group read no matter what side of the issue you may be find yourself.  Through vignettes back and forth in time, you will learn how Ed ended up where he is and how much circumstances can contribute to how a situation looks from an outsider’s perspective.

This book is written in free verse.  It isn’t a novel in the traditional chapter, paragraph, complete sentence model.  Each chapter is a section of free verse.  A form of poetry, typically 150 words or less, that doesn’t rhyme or isn’t written in a specific pentameter like poetry most people are familiar with.  A chapter may be one line, or it may be several short lines.  The words don’t always line up in a neat format.  Some people may find a novel hard to read in this format.  At first, I thought I would too.  Admittedly, the story was so engrossing that I stopped noticing the format early in the book.

The language is easy to understand and is easy reading for young and old readers alike.  The subject matter is tough, but graphic details are left out which I think makes this book readable for a wide-range of ages.  You’ll find yourself getting emotional, so be prepared for some hard thinking while and after reading Moonrise.  A thought-provoking picture of one man caught in the judicial system and living with consequences he might not have deserved.

This book was sent to Compass Book Ratings for review by Bloomsbury USA

Content Analysis:

Profanity/Language:  14 religious exclamations; 44 mild obscenities; 2 religious profanities; 5 derogatory names; 22 scatological words; 21 anatomical terms; 8 f-word derivatives.

Violence/Gore:  Man charged with murder; verbal threat of harm; playful slaps to head; mom slaps teenager in face; mom tells boy to drown sick cat (he does not do); multiple reports of murders with limited or no detail; woman spits on teenager; 9 page story of man running from police, interrogation and intimidation techniques and report of murder of police officer; description (not graphic) of botched execution; zombie TV show watched with blood and gore; girl burns hand (minor); girl trashes bedroom in anger; depiction of boys slashed with machete; man killed by lethal injection with no details.

Sex/Nudity:  Joke about getting girl pregnant; arm around waist twice; one kiss; brief discussion about sex with no detail; sex between teens with no explicit detail; girl plays with back of boy’s neck twice.

Mature Subject Matter:

Ethics, abandonment, murder, stealing, addictions, neglect, racial conflict, child abuse, capital punishment.

Alcohol / Drug Use:

Adults drink various forms of alcohol and smoke; teens drink various forms of alcohol and smoke marijuana; adults smoke cigarettes.