From the first crack of the book, I got exactly what I’ve come to expect (and relish) from a Glendy Vanderah novel: inky musical notes beautifully rising from that first page.

✨ “She held the soil to her nose, inhaling deeply, eyes closed in pleasure. ‘It’s the smell of eternity. There are bits of stars in this soil…’. Yes, I smelled the stars. I felt like I was whirling in a swirl of stars in a soil-black universe” (1-2).

This redemptive read opens with two sleeping souls who ebb and flow between the light and darkness, shamefully stuck in the black mire of deep-buried secrets. Vaughn, a famous and somewhat aloof author battling writer’s block, lives in the lights of NYC, while Riley, a 21-year-old biology student burying a tragic past, lives in the darkness of a rural Wisconsin farm. These two are pulled together by the tides of the moon or fate or some other force beyond their control, connecting them through a shared grief. Caged in isolation together by fear and guilt and shame, Riley and Vaughn fight the many monsters of their pasts that seem rise in the absence of moonlight. To fight these monsters, the medicine comes in the form of an amalgamation: a mixture of art and science and music and beauty and, most of all, magic—all things together in perfect harmony.

WHY YOU SHOULD READ
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While it did take a little while for me to become vested in this story, I definitely did and loved it! It covers so much but gives the reader such joy! ( )

4.75 Stars. I had some reservations about Glendy Vanderah’s debut novel Where The Forest Meets the Stars (my review), but have just found her third novel The Oceanography of the Moon utterly captivating.

Firstly, for those expecting magical realism, that’s not what’s on offer here. One of the many things that had me spellbound, was the special lens that Vanderah’s narrative applies to people, objects, and nature. It’s as though she, and several of her characters, view the world through a high contrast and high saturation filter, and thus are witness to the magic and serendipity to be found in the everyday. Her artistically vivid descriptions of natural flora, fauna and even the changing weather conditions, cultivated an enchanting sense of tension between the characters and their surroundings.

Strikingly refreshing also is the uncommon level of open-mindedness and selfless goodwill displayed by Vanderah’s beautifully developed secondary character set, who are amongst the most authentically endearing I have read. Continue reading: https://www.bookloverbookreviews.com/2022/06/the-oceanography-of-the-moon-glendy... ( )

Glenda Vanderah - amazing writer. She is a thoughtful, precise wordsmith who weaves thoughts into a painting of relationships blended into nature. She is a spinner of images, she is a story teller extraordinaire. This is a complicated story with diverse and interesting characters and personalities and switchbacks between them. We are told that there is magic and bits of stars in the dirt and it translates into the stories - you can smell it and see it. “The sky was a deep drink or black cola, an effervescence of stars that tingled all the way down.”

Vanderah writes about damaged people. She writes about abuse and neglect but also about support and kindness. She swivels the mirror from the the ugliness to the beauty and back again. She never lets the reader forget that there are damaged people who are trying to heal and find their way. Much of the backstory is about the abusers and the protectors who propel those in the here and now to perfect their cover. There is an “age-old battle of good and evil” that persists throughout the story.

This story is so well conceived, plotted, planned and executed the hurt is all the more powerful. Thank you NetGalley and Lake Union Publishing for a copy. ( )