Circle the Moon

Fifteen-year-old Michelle Tanner is a military kid, and as such, was uprooted from her near-the-beach home in Eureka, California, to the middle of Idaho. Michelle is fine at managing the change in climate, school, friends, and culture, ending up with both a new boyfriend and a secret admirer. Through college and after, she has three key relationships that present their own joys and challenges. But her new life is left unsettled with the death of her father, spinning her world and feelings out of control.

Circle the Moon is an engaging story. Michelle is a likeable and sympathetic character, realistic in her portrayal, facing difficult situations, yet not overly melodramatic. We see Michelle’s life going forward and back in time, peeling the story back, one layer at a time. Her relationship with her mother suffers in the wake of her father’s death, and Michelle finds herself married to one man, and still feels the call to be with her old high school admirer. It is how Michelle does, and doesn’t, deal with all this that Circle the Moon presents in a highly readable way. An enjoyable novel that explores hard issues.