The Shepherd Moon by H.M. Hoover

 

Part of me wants to give this a higher rating just because it was so weird and I have a soft spot for vintage YA, but this was so strange and hard to follow and had such an abrupt ending that I really wasn't all that keen on it.

THE SHEPHERD MOON is a 1980s YA dystopian novel about a futuristic Earth. We learn that Earth built several satellite moons do to overpopulation and some of those moons got up to some weird shit, as we find out when a space pod from one of those moons-- Terra II-- crash-lands on Earth, releasing a mysterious teenage boy who doesn't necessarily have the best intentions.

Merry, the heroine, is the one to find the boy and is also the one to see him do some sus stuff that everyone around her immediately gaslights her about. "You didn't really see that," they say. "That's not possible," they say. Joke's on y'all, I guess, because the next thing you know, people are getting burned alive and suddenly the government's involved.

Read this for the vintage vibes and if you like YA dystopians. Apart from that, I didn't find it too interesting, although there were some pretty poignant lines about the heroine and how she wasn't appreciated by her showy rich parents that I thought were rather touching and sad.

2 to 2.5 out of 5 stars