Adored the message, adored the characters, my biggest problem is how insanely unrealistic the ending was. Very mid for poetry in my opinion. ( )

4.5 Stars

CW: Horrific period shaming sexual content, slut shaming, threats of rape, sexualisation of periods, cyber bullying

Well I feel like I have just read something incredibly important.

This verse novel looks at changing the narrative around women, periods and sex. Lucy explores period shaming, slut shaming and toxicity between women on social media in this engaging story. It is very intense at times and I felt ill at the threatening nature of the online bullying that Frankie faced after a meme about her went viral. I honestly could not put this down as I felt connected to this story and invested in the characters. Absolutely fantastic! ( )

An amazing book about period shaming, cyberbullying and the true power of friendship, #girlpower. I read this in 24 hours. Very well written as a novel in verse. I didn't want it to end. Why young men think that a menstruation cycle is a bad thing is beyond me. Girls menstruating is a normal everyday occurrence, not a reason to slut-shame someone. It's the reason those boys were able to be born! The cyberbullying aspect of the story drew me in and kept me reading late into the night. The power of social media and how everyone believes what is posted blows my mind every time. Why not use social media for the better, not the worst. Every girl needs to read this book. ( )

When it is revealed that Frankie started her period while being intimate with her boyfriend, a moment of embarrassment turns into weeks of embarassment as a mean spirited meme goes viral. Blood Moon shines a light on how internalized misogyny causes both boys and girls to denigrate women for their bodily functions and sexuality. The ending was happily tied up, but the shame spiral and isolation that the main character experienced as she lost control of the narrative of her story felt grounded in reality.

This is a young adult book. The language is coarse but the sexual activity is depicted quite modestly. One of the few (if not first) young adult novels I've read where the female character openly achieves orgasm with her boyfriend, and the whole intimate experience is written positively. #endperiodstigma ( )

High school drama with a happy ending
Rumors
BFF betrayals
Supportive parents
Overcoming harassment
Girl power
It’s just blood ( )

This book has the perfect YA balance of romance with some steam and teenage problems of today along with overcoming hateful situations and normalizing bodily functions. Frankie is an astronomy loving teenager with a close group of friends, but when best friends seem to turn on one another, where does the group's loyalty lie? Embarrassment is a normal teenage rite of passage and this story encompasses the feeling of mortification and the reader follows along with the devastation and the subsequent empowerment of taking the brave stand and making a change. ( )

I am constantly thankful that social media did not exist when I was an adolescent. Teenagers can be impulsively cruel and this novel in verse does an amazing job of demonstrating exactly that in today's heavily documented reality. What's crazy is that, no matter how far we've come in other areas, we are STILL stigmatizing periods.

This book should be given to all our daughters and then all our sons. And probably parents too. ( )

Being a teenager is challenging. Navigating a first sexual experience is awkward. Getting your period during that first encounter takes awkward to a whole other level. Luckily, Frankie's crush is pretty chill, and they both agree it's no big deal. But then the rumors at school begin...

This novel in verse was superb and totally relatable — if you're a girl and haven't experienced a situation like Frankie's, you've almost assuredly been mortified at one point or another at the idea. The teenage voice comes through authentically, and I appreciate the author's effort to destigmatize completely normal bodily functions, which have historically been regarded with fear and revulsion, with grace and dignity.

I received this ARC via LibraryThing's Early Reviewers program. ( )

I am way older than the characters (too old to even be their mom, but younger than grandma) so there was a disconnect. But I do enjoy other YA literature, and of course the topic intrigued me as a female. However, I found the verse form distracting and out of place. Was it meant to imply drama or a detachment from reality or a harkening back to timeless Shakespearean situations? No idea. I think this is the first novel I've had in my hands that brings in the everyday reality of the ever-present phone, chat, selfies, and hashtags. I've decided I don't like those things in my novels. Finally, while I feel the author perfectly captures the bipolar condition of middle teens (i.e., one moment acting childish, the next acting like 15-going-on-30), I found myself cringing and/or rolling my eyes, and, in the parlance of my own teen years, grossed out by phrases such as "he ended up banging them both as a birthday present," "gesticulating grotesquely with his overmobile groin," "fans her crotch," "blood rushes to ...your lady lips too. She nods at my crotch and grins," "I'm talking major cooch quivers," "O queen of the parched vag," along with the milkshake licking scene and the dad who wanted to gossip about who made out with who ... and that was just in the first 60 pages. I couldn't bring myself to go further. DNF. ( )

I am not this book’s target demographic. I usually don’t go for YA but social media and public shaming are topics I find interesting, so I thought I’d give this a shot. I missed entirely that this was written in verse. I am a poetry heathen - Shel Silverstein is the extent of my enjoyment. Typically, I find it overwrought and contrived. It worked for this book, though. Yes, sometimes I found it a bit emo, but that worked well with the YA first-person narrative so it didn’t really detract. At first it felt a bit like a Tumblr post in text message format but again, that kind of fits with the book so it worked for me.

The story was very engaging, mostly because of the emotional intensity particularly in the middle section. Some bits brought me back to the awkwardness of my teenage years and other parts raised good questions about unequal treatment of female vs male students. Even with the slightly awkward (to me) style, this was very engaging and I read it in one sitting.

Of course, part of the reason I read it so quickly is that, for all the pages, there is not a lot of text. It’s really closer in length to a novella. It took me just over an hour to read and I felt like I was constantly turning pages. Perhaps I read verse wrong.

Also, while the end was a bit of a feel-good wrap up that would work well in a movie, I felt it was a bit too pat. Particularly the fallout of the shaming. We went from Frankie having a panic attack because she thinks the delivery man is going to attack her to everyone all laughing and empowered with no residual problems. A few other moments struck me as not quite realistic as well. Would her volunteer job really tell her to leave because her picture was used in a meme? Don’t most adults assume bullying like that to not necessarily be based on truth? And even if it is true, wouldn't most easily see her as the victim? I suppose an argument can be made that since it is sexual, they are judging her for that, as women are judged regularly, but it doesn’t sit quite right with me. And the ending still left me with some questions that I felt were little plot holes. Where did Jackson get the picture from? Did he just randomly get blood on his hands and snap a pic? And where did he get the picture of Frankie from? Hacked from Harriet’s account because her password was easy to guess? Seems a lot of effort when I’m sure he could have found a different picture of her somewhere else much easier. Lastly, the description of Frankie’s dad was just plain uncomfortable to me. At the beginning, he is described as having “squealed” something which completely threw me off. There are few men, or adults of either sex, that I have seen or can imagine squealing so right away I felt some cognitive dissonance in regards to the father. Perhaps his description is trying to make a comment about masculinity, etc, but as his characterization would have been awkward even as an adult female, it was weird. But regardless of those imperfections, I still enjoyed the book a surprising amount. ( )

This is the kind of book I wish I would have had in middle school, so I'm glad that it exists now! I'm not sure that being in verse really adds much to the book, but at the same time, I might not have picked it up otherwise. It's a quick read with an ending that's a little too happy and clean-cut, but it deals with many difficult issues in a thoughtful and accessible way, which I appreciate. ( )

Shame has entered into my bloodstream.
It passed from digital me,
into reality, infecting
and poisoning me
living me.

Thanks to Walker Books US for the ARC and chance to provide an honest review.

At first I thought I wasn't going to enjoy this one, but it ended up being a satisfying read that highlighted some heavy topics. The pacing was very fast moving, which was perfect for personifying how quickly things go viral and escalate on the internet. The friendships depicted were realistic and made sense for the age group depicted. I can't say if the two main girls, Frankie and Harriet, won me over because they both displayed negative behaviors and rash judegments towards each other.

The author sets the stage to tackle some heavy issues, such as sexual objectification of teenage girls, internet misogyny, toxic masculinity, normalizing periods and cyber bullying but the resolution fell flat and rushed. For such serious topics, the consequences and repercussions weren't fully explored and fleshed out. Things got extremely toxic and dangerous for the protagonist rapidly but the ending wrapped up too neat and tidy and other guilty parties were just forgiven. The protagonist, Frankie referenced accountability many times throughout the book, yet not everyone was held to this standard.

I loved that the protagonist wasn't the average teenage trope. She was smart, into science and space and held people to high standards, including her friends. She maintained resilience and strength throughout her ordeal. I do feel that it would have been more meaningful if she had been given the opportunity to truly confront everyone involved in targeting and bullying her, not just have one person take the "heat". It made it feel like her traumatic experience was not given as much value because of the minimized steps taken by the adults. The guilty party got off way too easily.

Overall, this story is important and I appreciated the verse format. You can easily breeze through it. I would definitely pass it on to a teen who may be in a similar situation. It will spark some deeper conversations and hopefully shed some light on difficult topics.

This bookdragon rates this one 3.5 🔥. ( )

That the main character, Frankie, is a teenage girl into astronomy, and this story contains astro facts scattered throughout, is a big win – yay for girls in STEM. Another intriguing conceit is that the text is written in easy-to-follow free verse, which lends a (mostly successful) rhythmic quality to the lines and tone. The story, about the aftermath of Frankie’s first sexual experience (which includes bullying, effects on her friendships, and overall impact on her life at school and home) is well written and will be helpful to teen girls in embracing the fact that menstrual blood is normal, nothing to be ashamed of. ( )

This story of online and in-person bullying and the nature of teenage friendship is told through open verse poems. Frankie is a teenage girl with her first serious crush on a boy from her school who actually likes her back. His name is Benjamin and they meet at a party and sparks fly. Frankie is a very studious girl who is not normally so into boys so she doesn't mention her crush to her best friend Harriet because she's afraid of being teased.

Things escalate quickly with Benjamin and as bad luck would have it, Frankie's first sexual experience coincides with the start of her period. She's so embarrassed, but Benjamin is really sweet about it and it seems to bring them even closer. But the next day at school everyone knows and Frankie feels betrayed. Her secret is spread all around the school and soon is on the internet as well as she becomes a part of a viral meme. Now she is the target of violent threats and insults from not just her peers but the world at large.

Even Frankie's job is put in jeopardy as her supervisors suspend her from work because patrons at the planetarium might recognize her. Frankie finds herself even more isolated when Benjamin stops talking to her and she finds out that it was actually Harriet who started the cruel meme that has taken over her life.

This is an interesting story if a bit fanciful. I know it's hard to predict what will go viral on the internet, but I refuse to believe that the world would be so transfixed and united in its hatred for one specific teenage girl who got her period on her boyfriend. The scene where her waitress at a restaurant recognizes her... uh, sorry, I can't believe that would ever happen. The internet is too big. The tidy conclusion is also pretty hard to believe. It's incredibly hard to swallow that an entire school's hatred could be dispersed by a group of people making t-shirts that say #NoShame. But okay. It becomes quite saccharine at the end, but it's not a bad book. It is, however, hard for me to imagine actual teenagers who are going through cyber bullying to find this type of story helpful or uplifting. ( )

With all the cyber bullying that is going on in the world today this is a timely novel that addresses this type of abuse and ultimately delivers a powerful and healing message. Frankie is a high school student who has a very lovely first time sexual experience and horrifyingly enough discovers that she has started her period in the midst of it. But hey, it's only blood and no one but she and her beau know... until shameful and cruel memes start showing up all over the internet. Who would do such a thing? Her best friend Harriet who she is on the outs with, Benjamin, the boy she likes? Frankie must come to grips with this cyber abuse and finds a way to stand tall and true against the nastiness. A good message for young adults in these crazy times. Recommended. ( )

When I started Blood Moon, I was unsure if I'd like the book. I actually like novels in verse, so that wasn't a problem. I think what was bothering me was the way the the characters talk. They're high schoolers, and (as a 30-year-old with three teenage siblings) I didn't find the dialogue or inner monologue to be written the way teenagers speak.

Ultimately, I really enjoyed the final third of Blood Moon. The author did a great job of conveying emotions I definitely remember feeling as a teenager, and I thought the ending was pretty perfect. I also appreciate the overall message of the book. ( )

An important book for teens and I really think even though I'm past a lot of this drama ((sooo old)) that a book with this cheesy ending is so encouraging and important. Also the pages filled with the word ME over and over really hit an the emotions brought up are very on point wth those lost days of highschool ( )

This young adult novel in verse set out to accomplish a great goal, but it ultimately fell a little short for me. I liked the premise, but the characters were incredibly unrelatable. It was easy to tell that the author was an older person trying to talk like a younger person, which felt very phony. I thought she did a good job at capturing the isolation that teens feel as a result of their perception of events as catastrophic and that they are alone within them, but that didn't make it very fun to read. I also never really understood why it needed to be a novel in verse. It could have been more compelling had it been written in prose. ( )

This was a quick, captivating read. It’s written in verse so is much shorter than the page length would suggest. The verse layout didn’t bother me, but I’m not sure if it really added anything to the story. Felt rather gimmicky. Story wise, I enjoyed this but found it frustrating at times. Reading this as someone in their 30’s, it was a pleasant reminder of the exciting, high emotion teenage years. But it was difficult seeing the teenage characters acting irrationally and hyperbolically. You just want to shout at them through the pages. Not sure how this would come across to the YA reader this book seems directed towards. This is the first book I’ve read that addresses online bullying and boy does it seems like an important and relevant topic to address these days. Overall the understanding and compassion of the friends and family depicted was very sweet and led to an overall heartwarming read.

Thank you to LibraryThing for an ARC in exchange for an honest review. ( )

Once I got passed that this book is written in prose style and not the typical way a story is written, I liked it. It is the story of one girl, Frankie whose first sexual experience happens when she is menstruating and the horror of what happens when she becomes the butt of jokes at her high school. Who shared her story? Her boyfriend? Her best friend? How can she stop it? Can she talk to her parents about it? Although it is a quick and easy read, I felt it there a slow start to the story but I really enjoyed the ending. How Frankie and her friends turned it all around. It is a story about cyber bullying, female empowerment, and the real meaning of friendships and reliance. ( )

This novel in verse tells the story of Frankie, a high school student whose period starts while she is being intimate with her new boyfriend. This experience becomes known and literally goes viral, exposing Frankie to on-line bullying, threats and puts her cherished summer intern position at risk. It also alters her relationship with her best friend, Harriet.

A novel in verse makes character development less prominent in a story than I usually like. In this case, though, the immediacy of the writing style helped me to experience what Frankie was feeling and to empathize with her. As an adult who great up before the digital age, I am horrified at how little privacy so many people have and how it seems to be devalued, even by those who are not victims. The novel shows the devastating impact of public shaming, and how old-fashioned person-to-person friendship and dialogue can help. ( )

I had no idea what to expect when I opened this book. Instead of the murder mystery I was expecting I got a YA book written in verse. It tells the story of how public shaming has reached a new level with social media. It is also the story of friendship. Frankie, who is in high school, has her first period and her first sexual experience at the same time. At the same time, she is working through a breakup with her best friend. Then add in what is being said about her on social media. Cuthew places emphasis on the importance of friendship and how it helps us get through tough times. Well-written stories in verse can convey a lot of emotion in few words and Cuthew has accomplished that. I thought the ending was a little sunshiny, but then is not that the way we want our lives to be in our teenage years, even with all the cyberbullying. ( )

A novel in verse about menstruation, slut shaming, and online bullying.

(Full disclosure: I received a free e-ARC for review through Edelweiss. Content warning for misogyny, including rape threats, slut shaming, and harassment.)

“At least no one knows
it was you,” he whispers.
“Everyone is talking about me.”

This is true.
Everyone is
talking about him.
But it’s not embarrassing.

“Yeah,” I say,
realizing something.
“And you’ve never been
more popular."

***

"[D]o you know how boring it is,
what you’re doing?
Periods are normal.
You’re the weird thing.”

***

Sixteen(ish)-year-old Frankie is living her best life: she has a posse of loyal girlfriends; her BFF, Harriet, lives right next door, and their interests - astronomy and photography - frequently dovetail into some pretty awesome collaborations; she's acing her favorite subject, physics; and she's all but guaranteed to land a coveted internship at the planetarium. Things seemingly fall even more perfectly into place when her crush on Benjamin, an adorable rugby player with dimples for days and meaty thighs just begging for a bite, does not go unrequited.

One day after school, the two share some spontaneous sexyfuntimes, which ends with Frankie unexpectedly getting her period on and around Benjamin. Before you can say "#NoShame," the rumors start to fly, with self-appointed school d-bag Jackson leading the charge. Things go from bad to worse when a meme involving Frankie goes viral online. The ensuing bullying, sexual harassment, and rape threats wear away at Frankie, threatening her mental health, relationships, and educational and professional opportunities.

What's the big deal, though? It's only blood.

I had mixed feelings about this one. Though I'm 110% on board with the concept, I think this is an example of where telling a story in verse doesn't really add anything to the experience. Blood Moon isn't bad, necessarily, I just wanted more: more exposition, more in-depth analysis, more righteous feminist anger and in-your-face troll slaying. More character development.

And maybe a little less: less forgiveness and general glossing over of that one Really Terrible Thing Harriet did, the one that most definitely falls into the category of "prosecutable child pornography." (Seriously, the way Harriet went off the rails like that, I was expecting a Big Reveal about how she'd been sexually assaulted as a child or something. But she's just a sociopath, I guess?)

The ending also had that '80s romcom feel-good vibe that's just a little too sappy to be believable.

It could also be that Blood Moon skews a little toward the younger end of the YA spectrum, which made it harder for me to relate. Also, I'm an admitted pessimist. So, grain of salt.

The cover art game is on point, though.

http://www.easyvegan.info/2020/09/08/blood-moon-by-lucy-cuthew/ ( )