When the Moon Was Ours discussion

The book that I decided to read from the Nerdy Book Club list was When The Moon Was Ours by Anna-Marie McLemore. This book was a “spinoff” on the Hispanic folktale/legend of La Llorona. There are different versions of this folktale but it is basically about a women that drowns her children and roams through places searching and crying out for them. I was very into this book and intrigued by it because being Mexican, I have grown up listening to that folktale and always being scared!

The book starts off with a water tower being broken down due to how old it was and when the city knocked it over, a girl named Miel fell out of it and the town was scared of her. Nobody wanted to touch or even get close to her. There was a curandera, which is a shaman and they are natural healers, named Aracely who took her in and let her live at her house. A boy named Sam also became her friend and was not afraid of Miel. Sam made moons that would shine directly to Miel because he believed that since she came from water and the moon controls the water on earth, that by making moons she would be calm. The town was scared of Miel because she was able to grow roses and vines on her arms but she would explain that as the roses grew on her, she could feel the thorns in her veins and she would be in pain. There was a group of sisters, Chloe, Peyton, and Ivy, that were known as the Bonner sisters that owned a farm of pumpkins and they were after Miel and her roses. They believed that the roses would give them power and everything that they wanted. Miel did not want to give her roses up the sister and when Miel refused to give them to them, they locked her in a coffin made of stained glass until she cooperated with them. They threaten Miel that they would tell the town that her mother didn’t her children and that she drowned them. At the end of the book, Aracely confesses that she is Miel’s brother but that the water turned her into a women when their mother abandoned them and Sam also confesses that he is a woman as well but that he dresses up like a male because in his culture there always has to be a male in the household. I definitely recommend this book to everyone!