3.5 Stars ( )

Ed est accusé de meurtre et condamné à mort. Au moment des faits, son frère Joe a 7 ans. Un an plus tard, la mère prend un bus pour le Minesota et ne revient pas. C’est leur tante qui s’occupe d’Ed et de sa sœur Angéla. Dix ans plus tard, une date est fixée pour l’exécution d’Ed. Il demande à Joe d’être à ses côtés jusqu’au dernier moment.
Un roman poignant sur la peine de mort vue du côté de la famille des condamnés. L’impact du roman est accentué par la forme choisie : poème en prose. Plus on se rapproche de la fin du roman plus on se rapproche du moment fatidique, plus la tension monte.
(Nelly) ( )

Once again Sarah Crossan has tugged at my heartstrings and created a beautiful poignant story, that is heartbreaking in it's simplicity. ( )

Brilliant novel. A deeply moving story. I finished it the same night as the blue moon lunar eclipse - not planned, but made the story even more poignant. ( )

Literary Merit: Excellent
Characterization: Excellent
Recommended: Recommended
Level: High School

Until I went to my review group meeting in July, I had never heard of Moonrise, nor had I ever read a book in verse. Oh man was I in for a gut wrenching, heartbreaking story told in bursts outlining the life of a teenager named Joe as he travels to Texas to live and work while his brother sits on death row, awaiting his execution.

I read this in one sitting, it was so enthralling. Joe is seventeen and hasn’t seen his brother Ed in about ten years. The majority of those ten years, Ed has been imprisoned for a crime he claims he didn’t commit, and honestly I believe him. There’s a real sense of injustice in this book, especially when Joe gets a letter from Ed detailing what happened the night the crime was committed and how police coerced Ed through sleep deprivation, hunger, thirst, and fear to make a guilty confession.

Absolutely this book makes me think about the justice system and the way the people who carry out the law are so easily corrupted. It also brings about a lot of thoughts about families and relationships and parental neglect and how those themes can affect children differently. Ed, Joe, and their sister Angela have no father figure, and their mother is basically a dead beat. After Ed is sentenced and Joe is still a small child, their mother takes off, leaving a devastated family even more devastated and torn. The kids are lucky enough to have an aunt step in and care for them, but she’s so strict it still causes head butting and drama. As Joe gets older, he gets a letter from Ed asking him to come to Texas because a date for Ed’s execution has been set. In the moments that follow, we get to see Joe on a journey to do everything possible for his brother, even if that’s simply walking miles and miles in the Texas heat (because Joe doesn’t have a car) to visit his brother every day, if only for an hour.

I really enjoyed the book overall. The characters are all fleshed out quite well and the storytelling in verse works so well to pack an emotional punch and really hit you in the feels. The back and forth between past and present helps the flow of the story to show things that happened in the past which may have in turn led to bad decision making in the future. I think by telling the story in verse it also develops the characters really well. It strips down the story to the meat and bones, leaving out all fluff, and allows the reader to get a real sense of who these people are and why we should care about them.

Moonrise is an emotional rollercoaster of fear and injustice and what it means to hope, even in the darkest of hours. It’s definitely a book that will stick with me for a long time. ( )