Book Review: Valley of the Moon by Bronwyn Archer

Book: Valley of the Moon
Author: Bronwyn Archer
Published: April 13, 2016
Publisher: Bronarch Books
Number of Pages: 282
Format: Ebook
Source: Received for an honest review.
Rating: 2 Stars
Tags: YA, Received for Review, Mystery, #COYER, Why?

Goodreads/Amazon 

Synopsis: Senior year is not going well for 17-year-old Lana Goodwin. Her father’s vintage car business is about to crash and burn, the nicest (and cutest) teacher at school was fired under a cloud of scandal, and her hot sort-of boyfriend may or may not have something big to hide.

She’s also totally over being the class pauper. It’s bad enough her dad was briefly married to the head of the board—the rich, cruel, impeccably groomed Ramona Crawford. What’s worse is going to school with her vindictive ex-stepsister, who never misses an opportunity to make her life hell. Not ever.

It also happens to be the tenth anniversary of her mother’s suicide. No one knows why Annie Goodwin jumped off the Golden Gate Bridge the day after Christmas. She didn’t leave a note. She wasn’t sick. Even Lana’s father can’t explain it. Ten years later, someone—or something—starts sending her clues about her mother’s past.

Before Lana can escape to college, she finds herself in a life-or-death race to uncover her mother’s long-buried secrets.

Can she claim her birthright before her future and her life are snatched away?

~My Review~ 

This gets old really fast, and it has been happening to quite a few books that I have read recently. The last part of a book is good, even great at times, but I can never get over the first of the book.

In this book we follow Lana, as she finishes her last semester of high school. There are some problems with her family though. Her dad’s business is crashing, the anniversary of her mother’s death is around the corner, and she is the number one target of Cressida, her school’s mean girl. But when mysterious clues start falling all around her, she becomes suspicious about what actually happened to her mom.

Let me explain. The last 20% of this book was good, a little fast paced, but good. The 20% before that was setup for the last 20%, and the first 60-65% of the book wasn’t needed. The first 60% of the book was just her relationship, no mystery solving, no running from the Russian Mafia, and no action. It felt like mindless babbling at times, and I sometimes had trouble being interested. I wanted to read about the mystery, figure out what’s going on. Instead I just read about her relationship with a guy, who then got drunk and had sex with her when she didn’t want to, and then had sex with her ex-stepsister. No means no, and don’t have sex with anyone who has been drinking or was doing drugs. Okay? I am fine with authors talking about rape in books, I think that it’s a good thing. But it didn’t fit into this book. It just felt like something thrown in to fill the book up. It seemed like it was something that she just forgot about four days later, and I wish that she was effected by it more. But I do commend the author for writing about a topic that can be difficult to talk about.

So while there was very little development during the first part of the book, all of it happened during the last part. This made it extremely fast paced, and made it feel very rushed. Everything was being realized all at once, and all the action was being told at once. It was sensory overload. That being said, it wasn’t that bad. It was the most enjoyable part of the book, but I do with that it lasted for more of the book.

Overall, I didn’t like the first 60% of the book, but I did like the last part better. I don’t know if I’ll pick up the next book, I might if I happen to stumble upon it, but I highly doubt that I will end up reading it.