When the Moon Was Ours--"The blue whirled in on itself like the curves of a nautilus shell"

Title: When the Moon Was Ours

Author: Anna-Marie McLemore

What it’s about (in 75 words or fewer):  Best friends Miel and Sam are known as the strange ones in their town. Miel's wrist grows roses, and Sam paints moons to hang in the trees.  Miel lives with Aracely, the town curandera, and Sam pollinates the pumpkins in the Bonner's pumpkin field.  When the beautiful, yet evil Bonner sisters want to use Miel's roses to enhance their powers, they discover a secret about Sam that they threaten to reveal to the whole town.

What I think (in 250 words or fewer): McLemore is Mexican-American who describes her writings as magical realism. She blends elements of folk and fairy tale and culture in her stories.  Miel appears out of a water tower when she is five, Aracely cures the townspeople of "love sickness," and Sam is a bacha posh who wants to remain a boy.

When the Moon Was Ours reads like an old folk tale. Miel and Sam are nicknamed Honey and Moon. Their friendship turns to romantic love, and it's sweet to read without becoming overly mushy.  This book may read like a fairy tale, but it's definitely not for young children, since it contains (not graphic) sex and violence.

I had a hard time figuring out the "rules" of how magic works in the story's world, and it's not something that the people within the story understand either: they just accept that magic exists and some people know how to wield magic for good and for evil.

Along with the love story is the theme of "Live your truth."

The supposedly evil characters in this story were revealed to be more complicated than just "witches."  That being said, I would not have been sorry if the beautiful Bonner sisters had been crushed by a giant pumpkin out of their pumpkin patch.

I enjoyed the style of writing a lot--McLemore is gifted in using imagery, especially color, setting, and different descriptions of glass and moon, to convey mood.


This book is on the 2017 Rainbow Book List.


My final takeaway (in 75 words or fewer): When the Moon was Ours is so different than anything I have read before, I am not sure how to describe it. I enjoyed the ending.

I don't know what else to say without spoiling the book!  Read it yourself and tell me what you think. It's worth reading.


Memorable quotes/passages from the book:

• "Light from the moons spilled a layer of milky lilac over the floor.  They were covered in the blue-green of his bedroom walls, and the smell of spices from his mother's kitchen that soaked into his hair and came off onto his sheets.  Orange flower.  Green cardamom.  Pomegranate molasses.  It was so sharp and vivid on him that it made her bite the back of his neck" (hardback edition, pg. 10).
• "She was already weighted down having a daughter born with roses in her body, a curse that spurred those petaled children to turn on their mothers" (pg. 43)
• "The grass under Miel felt soft, like it would turn to water and pull them both under" (pg. 89).
• "The milky stars and blue-green sky exploded. The curves of the red and violet planets broke into pieces. The clusters of stars burst into shards, and the blue whirled in on itself like the curves of a nautilus shell.  Each panel splintered like ice, spraying into enough pieces for a whole sky of constellations" (pg. 257).

Other reviews:  Lambda Literary and Latinos in Kid Lit


This book is available in the Greensboro Public Library.