ReaditDaddy's YA Chapter Book of the Week - Week Ending 2nd June 2017 - "Ginny Moon" by Benjamin Ludwig (HQ Books)

Our Chapter book of the Week proudly isn't the next anything, it's the first Ginny Moon and I'll try and explain what I mean by that ...
It's something that I guess is inevitable. Humans, such as we are, are duty-bound to find categories and pigeon-holes, and points of reference for everything.

So when a piece of brilliant YA fiction (and I feel I should stress that this book really does need to be considered for teens rather than younger children) comes along that makes you gasp with the sheer gutsiness and originality of the story that you start getting quite irate at the press release describing it as "The Next 'Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time" when really the only shared commonality between the two is a smidge of resemblance in the main characters.

Ginny Moon is a girl who finally finds her 'forever' adoptive family.

By rights the book should end right there, after all 14 year old Ginny now has parents who will love her. But Ginny keeps a dark secret held close to her heart. Despite everyone telling her she should be happy, she should be content, Ginny still holds her "Big Secret Plan of Escape" more sacred than anything else.

Without going too far into spoiler territory, Ginny's heartbreaking back story explains why Ginny can't rest and be content, and why she must risk nearly everything in order to go back to a place that was nothing but traumatic and abusive, in order to set things right and finally find some closure.

As the novel evolves, we soon begin to discover that Ginny really is the sort of character who will stick in the mind long after you've reached the end of the book and (reluctantly) closed the back cover.

Benjamin has a startlingly original writing style and voice, a way of writing that wraps you up in a delicate (but tight) embrace, immersing you in Ginny's world and helping you to see things from her unique point of view.

Utterly breathtaking stuff and a very worthy book of the week.