Moonstone

When I was able to sign up for receiving an ARC for this title, I immediately did! I had seen the stunning Locked Library edition all over my social media already and I knew I really wanted to read this book!

Moonstone is a YA fantasy and the vibes that I got off the cover and the description said 'werewolves', 'fairy tale' and 'magic'. For me, this was enough to want to pick it up, because duh. The vibes were accurate and I'd say that this is a very good novel to read if you want to get into fantasy. It's high fantasy, but not really heavy and it's written in an accessible manner, since it's written for a Young Adult audience.

I really loved the setting of this novel, it really reminded me of the setting in 'A curse so dark and lonely' (hence the fairy tale vibes). The novel is partially set in a royal place and partially in dark and mystical woods, which is for me the perfect fantasy combination. The royal place is only described in the first few chapters of the novel, so it's not very extensively described, but I could easily picture the place. The dark forest was described in much more detail, which really made me feel as if I was wading through it myself at times - I was definitely very scared when all of a sudden someone started talking to me when I was reading a mysterious and dark scene. Moreover, the fact that the forest was very distant from a village made the atmosphere even more tense.

The setting in time was very interesting as well. I couldn't pinpoint a specific period of time in which the story takes place, I only know that it's shortly after the French Revolution since that was mentioned a few times. Some of the widespread opinions of the characters were kind of corny as well, because the women were not allowed to be or travel alone, were not allowed to be in company of men without their father and women alone that bought a lot of herbs were witches. Because I didn't really know in what period of time the story took place, I was a bit annoyed at first of the behaviour towards women - I thought it a bit ridiculous to write a fantasy in an imaginary world and then give women the same amount of rights as they had during the Middle Ages - but when I understood that the story takes place shortly after the French Revolution, I was less annoyed and understood these choices.

The main character was really well-written and really felt like a person, but I couldn't stand her personality. She is really naive. I was kind of annoyed by the fact that she didn't seem to understand ANYTHING and didn't stand up for herself. She was the typical 'rich girl' that didn't go to school and was meant to be beautiful and to marry, but she didn't have much going on in her head. The fact that I got so annoyed during reading shows the ability of the author to write a human-like character, because I would be highly annoyed if she were to exist. The other characters were less in the picture - also because the book was only told from the main character's perspective - and they were less human-like to me. I couldn't really figure out their thoughts and feelings while reading, they felt more as pawns - that were definitely necessary - until the end. There, they were better developed.

And then the plot. I really loved the dark and mysterious vibes that were all over the plot. The first 40% of the book I was hooked and I couldn't stop reading! But then the main character went to their aunts and the mysteries just weren't explained at all and the same sort of loop kept going. I think I would've liked it better when the main character was a bit more adventurous and discovering during her stay at her aunt's, so that the story kept on progressing more. The last few chapters were all of a sudden very adventurous and mysterious again, which luckily pulled me back into the story and really saved the story for me! I was really satisfied with the ending and I also don't feel that the story really needs a sequel (it could have one, but it's not necessary). Plus, I was a bit disappointed that the werewolves were not present in the story until the very end, since I really love stories about mythical creatures.

To conclude: I rate this book 3.5/5 stars and I would recommend this book to people that want to start reading fantasy or lovers of mysterious tales that are not really heavy on the fantasy parts. It's a dark and mysterious novel that also touches upon topics as female rights and LGBTQ+ relationships and it has a very accessible writing style.