Ginny Moonby Benjamin Ludwig

Meet Ginny. She’s fourteen, autistic, and has a heart-breaking secret…Ginny Moon is trying to make sense of a world that just doesn’t seem to add up. After years in foster care, Ginny is in her fourth forever family, finally with parents who will love her. Everyone tells her that she should feel happy, but she has never stopped crafting her Big Secret Plan of Escape.Because something happened, a long time ago – something that only Ginny knows – and nothing will stop her going back to put it right… (goodreads.com)

I read this book over a month ago. I finished it in two evenings. I asked at work if calling in sick to finish the book would be a legitimate sick call. After all, I do work in a bookstore. Shouldn't we get reading days? hehI have been wanting to write about Ginny Moon since I finished it, but I couldn't. This novel left me so breathless and in a state of, I don't know, frozen in place sort of thing. It was an amazing book. I fell completely in love with Ginny's voice as she told her story. I was turning pages like my life depended on reading this book to stay alive. I laughed. I was scared at times. I didn't know who to trust. I switched between loving, and disliking, Ginny so often, but in the end, I always came back to love.I first found out about this book because we had an announcement in the staff room at work - Staff Pick of the Month is Ginny Moon. The title alone resonated with me. Was it a name? A place? I have an instant interest in books with names like Gemma., Ginny, G-names, in the title. And the word "moon". I love the moon. And then a few weeks later the book showed up in-store. The book has deckled pages (the ripped-looking edges of the paper.) The cover is a bright, bold reddish-orange. It called to me. I picked up the book to read the inside flap and...three sentences into the summary I knew I was buying it on my break. That night I started reading. The rest, as they say, I just told you about at the start of this post!I knew that physically the book connected with me. I was beyond thrilled when a couple of pages into the first chapter I knew that the story itself was going to consume me. Ginny is 14 years old, and has autism. Her voice is so crisp and unique in the telling of her story. I don't think I have ever experienced a novel with narration like Ginny's. There is a never-ending sense of urgency in her voice. She's a rather unreliable narrator and I didn't know how to take her actions at all. Sometimes I felt she was sincere, other times I found her sinister. Either way, I was completely hypnotized by every word of dialogue in this novel.Ginny's story is full of emotion and I could feel her desperation myself. The story left me breathless and humming. My body was shaking at the end and I can't think of the last time a novel effected me nearly as strongly as this one did. The day after I finished the book I was telling coworkers about it, and some customers overheard. I showed them the book I was talking so animatedly about and was covered in goosebumps as I explained the story. One month later I STILL get goosebumps talking about the book. It took me over 3 weeks to be able to read anything else.I haven't been able to put words to my physical reaction to this story, which is why it's taken me over a month to write about it. Even now, my post doesn't do the story justice.Ginny is such a delight to get to know, even with the roller coaster of emotions she creates in the story. You want her to be happy, and loved, and safe. You want to know her. I least I do.I loved everything about this novel. Everything.Well, except for one thing: I didn't love that it was over when I turned the last page.  I almost started to re-read it right away except that it was late and I was half-asleep. But I will read it again - after I get it back from the second person I have lent it to in the past moth.This is a fiction novel - a debut! - but if you are mostly a YA reader, I would still suggest it as something you should pick up. There is swearing of course, but Ginny is such a rich, crisp, unique character that you need to get to know her. And this book reads like a suspense novel, but it's not really. But it is sort of. And it's so full of emotion - happy, sad, angry, scared, relief. Disclaimer: Not gonna lie. In the six months I have been working at the bookstore, this is the first Staff Pick I have ever really been interested in, or bought. Sure there have been others that I have contemplated perhaps trying, but in the end never picked up the books. I'd have gravitated to Ginny Moon as soon as I saw it whether or not it was the company's staff pick. Once I started reading it I felt like a tuning fork had just been rung inside me. I vibrated, hummed. My love, and passion about, this book has nothing to do with the staff pick sticker on the front in my store. It's 100% pure and genuine. I bought this book. I didn't borrow it from work, or the library. I bought it and I shall cherish it as part of my personal library until the end of time.