Keeping the Moon

I confess that I struggled to finish Keeping the Moon by Sarah Dessen. It took me a very long time to get into the book. It didn't help that I read it at night and only a chapter at a time. That doesn't reflect on my thoughts at the end of the book though.

The story is about Colie. She's fifteen

Show More

years old and spent her childhood as the fat girl. She'd recently lost weight with her fitness/nutrition guru mother but never got over the trauma of being teased. Colie's mother heads to Europe on a promotional tour and sends Colie to live with her eccentric aunt.

While at her aunt's house, Colie makes friends for the first time in her life. She is taught how to feel beautiful and gains confidence. She even learns that being different is not always a bad thing.

By the end of the book, Colie has evolved and I can imagine that she goes home stronger and more confident than ever before. This is a great story for girls with body image issues. It may focus a bit too much on being thin, but I think it leans toward being healthy.

Show Less

Gr 7 Up-Formerly fat Colie cannot shed her poor self image until she spends the summer with her eccentric aunt and develops a friendship with two worldly waitresses. A story heaped with crackling dialogue and sharp humor.

Colie must spend the summer with her Aunt, MIra. The time she spends there ends up changing her life forever. Norman, Isabel,and Morgan, three people she meets there, show her the true person she is. They also, teach her alot about life and the people around her. This book was very cute; it was a

Show More

very nice quick read.

Show Less

I heard from other people that this wasn't as good as other Sarah Desen books, so I wasn't expecting much, but I actually ended up really liking this book. It was a very easy read and I liked the story. It was about a girl named Colie who doesn't really fit in and has to go life with her aunt Mira

Show More

in North Carolina, and various the friendships and relationships that she makes there. I really liked all of the characters' personalities in the book.

Show Less

This book is about a girl who was really over weight but then she loses it all. So as a summer getaway her mom sends her to her aunt's house on the beach. There she gets a summer job as a waitress in a small town bar and makes friends with the locals.

Colie used to be fat. She isn't anymore, but she is still very insecure about herself, and lets herself be bullied by others. After being sent to live with her aunt in a vacation town over summer vacation, she learns to accept herself and form bonds with others.

I know this was one of her earlier books, and as her earlier books go, it is one of the ones I like more, but the writing style is in need of improvement. Along the way, one can easily trace Dessen's writing style from this to her more recent works and see how much it's changed for the better, but

Show More

for the sake of this review, the writing style of Keeping the Moon is pretty juvenile (ex: the first sentence of the work is "My name is Nicole Sparks.") I feel like a lot of really great characters were created in this work, but they don't go anywhere, don't do anything. Nothing much happens, and it's really a story stuck in transition. We get to see the very beginnings of Sarah Dessen's words of wisdom that we are so familiar with by now. The other really great thing about the characters is their names. I mean, main love interest's name is NORMAN, and that is not a name you see very often--so much personality! Overall, Keeping the Moon is a good start, but needs more. It's emptier than Dessen's other books. Nicole is overdramatic, but so boring! I think it may have been a more interesting book had it been set in Morgan or Isabel's point of view even, rather than Nicole's. Good start, but could have been better.

Rating: 3/5

Show Less

At first I didn't like this book because it's really not my style I only brought it because Barnes and Noble didn't Crescendo by Becca Fitzpatrick and I wasn't leaving until I find a book that interest me,BUT I'm glad that I brought this book it's something different and I really underestimated

Show More

this as a "slow-read" but I'm surprised I finished it in two days. I like how this book makes me feel like I'm there withthe characters(I guess that's how the Author writes I don't know) I think that this is a true "Summer Book" and everyone should at least read it once. Norman is so sweet character,Isabel is a good friend but comes off "bitchy" because she tells the truth,Nicole(Colie)is just a girl that's trying to find herself,and her Aunt Mira is a free spirited person. GOOD BOOK

Show Less

Colie is sent away to spend the summer with her overweight, and very different Aunt Mira. During this summer, Colie faces the issues that she has with her self-esteem and the objects that she uses to hide behind. With the help of her Aunt Mira and a few special friends, Colie looks deep inside and

Show More

finds her butterfly.

Sarah Dessen never disappoints me.

Show Less

This was a good story bout a girl who is coming to terms of who she is with the help of her aunt, and new friends and even a date.
Going from the new fat girl to really seeing her self this is a great book.
Colie is sent to her aunts for the summer while her mother is off in Europe. She gets there

Show More

and things are in disarray or so she thinks .. she meets Norman , Isabel and Morgan develops friendships ( the first in her life) and sees who she really is

Show Less

I love YA fiction: it is quick to read, it is entertaining, it is just fun. I have been disappointed lately with the quality of YA books I have been reading. The Luxe (see my review) left me upset and concerned about its content. Luckily, Keeping the Moon had everything that a great YA book should

Show More

have.

Colie is a “born-again” fat girl-skinner now, but not more confident. Her time with her aunt and her new friends teaches her to embrace who she is and who the people around her are. Sarah Dessen hits her reader over the head with the lessons, but at least they are good lessons for young girls to embrace. For example, Aunt Mira takes in lots of junk and tries to fix it because “we are all worth something“. Colie’s self-esteem is further developed when Isabella gives Colie some makeup lessons. She tells Colie that if she doesn’t believe in herself, no one else will. The trick to confidence, it turns out, is think highly of yourself. Suddenly the rest of world thinks highly of you too. Eventually, Colie stops examining things as only skin-deep. Instead, she goes deeper, and that is where Keeping the Moon gets its greatness.

I liked the plot of Keeping the Moon despite its predictability. It is the type of YA novel I hope my daughter reads when she gets older. Maybe more girls will pick up Sarah Dessen and put down the Twilight.

Show Less

This book was mainly about self-esteem issues, not caring so much about what other people think and learning to stand up for yourself. Anyone who has ever felt embarrassed about themselves, thought they were weird, or were not part of the popular crowd could relate to it in some way. It's also

Show More

about not judging others, especially since you have to evaluate yourself and realize your own flaws before you you start criticizing someone else for theirs. It wasn't Sarah Dessen's best novel, but I enjoyed it immensely. I feel like we could have gotten to know Norman a little better and I also feel that the ending could have been better, but overall a very satisfying Sarah Dessen novel.

Show Less

Summary: Going from being overweight to being known as “Hole in One” won’t do much for your self-confidence, which Colie Sparks is already lacking. Colie may be skinny and rich now, but she can’t help but fondly look back on the days when her mother and her used to drive around the country

Show More

in their old station wagon, living on Big Gulps and bags of chips. Now her mother has no time for her as Kiki Sparts, the aerobics queen, and Colie has to spend the whole summer with her quirky Aunt Mira in the middle of nowhere.

Use and appropriateness in a HS classroom: Keeping the Moon is another great read for teenagers that would be great addition to a teacher’s classroom library. The book discusses self-confidence and has a great message that happiness stems from loving and accepting yourself for who you are. It has the typical confrontation with a bully that can be expected in this kind of book but because it doesn’t feel contrived, it’s a great read for teens. The best in-class use for this book would be during DEAR time, or possibly if a teacher were doing a short segment on encouraging independent reading.

Show Less

A summer story - Colie goes to live with her eccentric aunt for the summer - giving her a chance to escape her bullied school persona and experience true friendship.
This was a little dated, it was hard to imagine somone having a professional baseball playing fiancée and not using the internet to

Show More

track the team's schedule. But the people themselves were wonderfully real, and the atmosphere was that of a perfect summer film.

Show Less

I like Sarah Dessen's writing; she always makes events and characters realistic. I think this book made good points about self-esteem and finding yourself. It had a good message about knowing the truth about yourself no matter what others may think. I gave it a low rating because it wasn't that

Show More

interesting to me and I feel like a lot more could have been explained or amplified.

Show Less

Colie still sees herself as the fat, friendless, girl who is always relocating and constantly being teased. But, now, her mother is off motivating others to lose the weight her and Colie lost and Colie is forced to stay with her aunt in Colby, a small town in North Carolina. She finds herself faced

Show More

with an assortment of brave, and slightly odd, people. With the help of her co-workers at her new waitressing job Colie learns to see the beauty in herself and to let go of the past.

I love this book. It's a great summer read. It's quick and has great characters and the scenes and situations grab you. Colie struggles with her image of herself, but it's not irritating. Sometimes characters will have too much self pity, but Colie is more subtle. Sarah Dessen can write about serious situations and show how the characters aren't constantly thinking about it, and that the small things shape our lives, too.

Everything is odd. The characters are the oddest. They had strange habits and said strange things and were surrounded by strange objects, and they were kind of random, too. They were the kind of people you'll stare at in wonder. When Norman was first descriped I thought "Really? He's going to be the main guy?", but now I am very fond of Norman. He's so odd, but not as odd as Mira. I have a fondness for her, too. It helps that she makes cards like I do! I knew Isabel would be an interesting character, and she was. Her and Morgan were exactly what Colie needed. They all were. I loved watching Colie grow and I like the person she became.

When I read a book by Sarah Dessen I'll sometimes get to a point where I wonder where a character dissapeared to and on the next page the character is there! She knows exactly when they're needed. Her books are balanced with what is needed to keep the reader happy and with plausible substance. The word "perfect" comes to my mind when I read her books.

Show Less

I really liked this book. It was origanal. I loved all the characters, my favorite was Isabel. I felt like I was accually there in the story. I loved how descripve it was. It accually gave me a new way of thinking. It was so desctripve on how she felt about her wieght. It described very well about

Show More

her feelings and how she knows that people talk about her wieght it made me not want to gossip or say anything that may be hurtful. Also, it taught me to be original.

Show Less

Sarah Dessen has written another fantastic romance story that grabs your attention and maintains it throughout the entire story with the descriptive details and lesson that everyone will learn through Colie.

Nicole, a.k.a. Colie, has always been that fat girl in school with no friends and

Show More

constantly being picked on. After her mother and her lost all their protective shield of fat, her mother becomes Kiki the one who invented a revolutionizing workout, building confidents and shedding the fat. Her mother travels the world spreading this workout, but leaves her daughter with her Aunt Maria in Colby. Maria is the corky kind of aunt, the one you wouldn’t want to go in public with because everyone starred at her as she passes and makes rude remarks under their breaths, but Maria doesn’t care what people think of her. Norman is the artistic man that lives on the bottom floor of Maria house. Their neighbors, Isabel and Morgan, work at The Last Chance where Colie gets a waitressing job for the summer. However the two girls also help her gaining confidents and begin to love herself for who she really was, inside. Along the way she starts to fall for someone she would never accept herself too.

As I began to read this I was trying to figure out what boy the main character, Colie, will fall in love with since the other books I read by Sarah Dessen have all started the dating in the beginning. However, this book was different. At the beginning I didn’t get who she was going to fall for, I was in suspense, which made me want to read more until I found out.

This book focuses on teaching a real strong message about appearances and how they help someone or even tear someone down. Colie has gone through both. She was the ugly one getting picked on, but once she lost the weight and moved to Colby for the summer things changed. Isabel, the one who is drop dread gorgeous hasn’t always been that way, she new exactly what Colie was going through. She helps Colie build her confidents back up by giving her a makeover. Colie looked in the mirror and saw herself pretty, which gave her confidents. However, she then realizes she has always been pretty, but just hasn’t looked at herself that way. She has always had beauty and confidents, but it was buried. This teaches everyone that deep down no matter what you look like you have beauty and confidents, you just have to dig it out.

Throughout Colie’s entire journey to finding her true beauty and confidence, I felt like I was one of her friends helping her along the way. She had incredible detail that touched almost all your senses, hear, look, smell, and even feel. She has just created such a wonderful romance movie in your head that even teaches you a lesson.

Show Less

Colie, a formerly-overweight girl who still feels like everyone is judging her, spends the summer with her aunt in a small beach town and unexpectedly lands a job at the Last Chance restaurant. She becomes friends with Isabel and Morgan, who teach her how to *be* a friend, and Norman, a sweet and

Show More

funny artist who Colie finds herself drawn to. During her time with them, she uncovers the true self that's been hidden under years of shame and phantom flesh. "Keeping the Moon" is one of my favorite Dessen novels; even though it's short, the characters are so vibrant and fully developed that you can easily transport yourself into their lives. Definitely a must-read for any young woman struggling with self-esteem issues.

Show Less

Not her best, Along for the Ride is sort of a better done rehash.

Colie has never fit in. She has always struggled throughout her life to make friends and be confident about herself mostly because of her weight. Her mom was right there beside her, being overweight herself. During those "Fat Years," Colie used her weight as a shield against other people.

When her

Show More

mom looses the weight and becomes Kiki Sparks, a world class fitness trainer, Colie's whole life changes. Her mom is no longer always there right beside her. Instead she is spreading her message about weight loss and her own personal struggle. During the summer, Colie's mom embarks on a world tour to promote her new revolutionizing workout series leaving Colie behind with her eccentric Aunt Mira in Colby. She meets Isabel and Morgan who teach her to be brave, be bold, and always believe in yourself.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book, as I have enjoyed all of Dessan's books so far. The plot is engaging and the characters are very relatable. The relationship between Isabel and Morgan is funny to read about because they are practically sisters which makes the book that much more interesting to read. I could predict from the very beginning that Colie was not going to like visiting Colby, but by the end, I knew that she would miss leaving it.

I thought that it was a little slow in the beginning, just because it mainly focused on Colie's arrival to her Aunt's house. It quickly got better though, and from there on I loved the book!

Colie struggled a lot with her appearance and self confidence in this novel. Isabel and Morgan were two extremely important characters who helped Colie through it all. They played a huge role in the outcome of the book and how Colie turned out in the end. Colie started out admiring Isabel and Morgan, but as she progressed into a new person, she had some of those qualities for herself. Self confidence, strength, and perseverance don't always come easily, and Colie had to find that out the hard way.

Show Less

This was the first Sarah Dessen book that I liked. It's very thought provoking and the characters are very relatable and real. The message is good, and I like seeing the character gain more self-esteem throughout the story. It's a good entertaining read.

"Fat ass, thunder thighs." Nicole is big. She has a bullying problem about it. Every time she was bullied she would push to do more exercises, and soon her mom opens her own program. When Nicole joins, she works her way up to be skinny again. Before that her mother was sent to tour Europe. Nicole

Show More

was sent to go live with her aunt. Knowing she had no friends back at home, she wasn't too confident that she would have friends here with her aunt. What she expects is bullies that hurt her the way the other kids did at her home. After living with her aunt, her expectations turn around when Nicole gets a job at a cafe where she meets two other girls. Before long, Nicole could count these two girls as her best friends.
"Keeping The Moon, by: Sarah Dessen," was okay to me. The plot or lesson in this book was good but bad at the same time. It teaches us that people come in all different sizes and shapes. It teaches you not to bully because the way you hear Nicole talk about the hurt fullness that bullies can cause, you could put yourself in her shoes and feel how horrible it is to be bullied. Also, if you are being bullied, to have confidence in yourself because some where there are those certain nice people who will accept you for who you are.
On the other hand, the story line was hard for me to follow. I got what the story was trying to say, but throughout parts, I caught myself having to re read things and still not know what is going on. The characters and the rhythm the story went confused me. Also, I got extremely bored with several parts in the story. This story wasn't the worst book I have read, but not the best either.

Show Less

There is something intensely readable about Sarah Dessen. This is the third book I've read by her in just over a week, and I still find myself hungry for more. Since her books deal around the concepts of relationships and identity and are aimed at teen girls, her female protagonists are all a

Show More

little uncomfortable, uncertain in their skin. This makes them extremely easy to identify with and also to empathise with. Any young girl who is feeling a little fat, a little clumsy, a little unlikeable, could learn a bit from her books, and this one in particular. The banter between Isabelle and Morgan is hilarious - they scrap like siblings, but are really best friends, and as older role-models, work well for Nicole, especially the somewhat forthright Isabel (warning: some bad language). And the stuff with Norman (Norman Norman, not Cat Norman) was sweet. I also loved the stuff with her somewhat eccentric Aunt. It is good to see a character that is far from perfect, and subjected to the occasional mockery from others, but is able to look beyond that and be comfortable with themselves.

A quick and easy read with some heart-warming moments that I pretty much devoured in one sitting. I can understand why Dessen keeps winning teen awards. I wish I'd had books like this when I was an uncomfortable, confused teen. Then maybe I wouldn't have felt so alone.

Show Less