SPOIL-FREE SUMMARY
Allie Jo lives with her family at the Meriwether, a hotel in Florida. She is used to meeting strangers, but then she meets a girl with a strange secret. Along with Chase, a boy who has come to stay, they have to decide how to protect this girl, all the while wondering if she is who she says she is.
CAST OF CHARACTERS
Allie Jo is talkative and outgoing. She loves living at the Meriwether, while at the same time she worries about what others think of her. She is alittle naive but also very kind and hardworking.
Chase is the only son of a travel writer. He loves skateboarding and can be reckless as well as sometimes defensive.
Tara is the mysterious girl who shows up at the Meriwether. She is a pretty teenager with a hidden past, an odd accent, and an ignorance of the world.
PACING
Each chapter goes back and forth from Allie Jo and Chase's perspectives. Allie Jo does not meet Tara until chapter seventeen, but the chapters are rather small. So this isn't nearly as far in as it sounds. And we learn Tara's secret more than halfway though the book, so the majority of the time Allie Jo and Chase are in the dark. So the pacing is okay.
CHARACTER ARCS-SPOILERS
The nice thing is that both of the main characters have character arcs. We don't learn everything about them at once. At first glance, they both seem really happy. But eventually we learn that Allie Jo doesn't have much confidence in herself. She worries what the popular girls from her school think of her and admits she only has one friend.
Chase hides the pain of a mother who abandoned him and his dad by getting away with reckless behavior. He admits he can get away with things because his dad doesn't have all of the time to parent him. It's this that gets him in trouble at the beginning of the story, when he decides to break the rules and skateboard in a closed off part of the hotel.
But although Allie Jo learns to have more confidence, Chase has no reason to be less unhappy about being abandoned by him mom. He is just happier, perhaps because he had a brief romance with a girl at the inn?
HINTS ABOUT SECRETS-SPOILERS
We don't get all of the information about Chase and Tara's secrets at once. Instead we get hints. Chase is annoyed when Allie Jo romanticizes a story about adultery. At first he says his mom is visiting someone. Later we find out the truth.
Tara doesn't share everything about herself at first either. We just see her odd behavior and it seems obvious that she is keeping a big secret.
It's nice that we get information sprinkled throughout the story. It helps the reader grow interested.
IS TARA CRAZY?-SPOILERS
An interesting aspect of the story is when a man shows up looking for Tara. He claims that his daughter is not mentally healthy. Suddenly a seed of doubt is planted. Allie Jo wonders if perhaps Tara needs help, but not the kind she is being given.
Allie Jo and Chase argue about the issue, Chase still believing Tara over the man who is looking for her.
If the story had been longer, perhaps real doubt could have been planted in my mind as well. But no real evidence is given for this argument.
CAN TARA CHANGE?
Allie Jo and Chase plan to help Tara stay with them and teach her to change so she fits in better. Allie Jo daydreams of having an older, amazing sister. There are small hints that this can never happen, but I never thought it would anyway.
I LOVE THE 80'S
There a few vague references to the this story taking place in the eighties. Allie Jo says all of the popular girls have perms. Chase and his dad rent a video called “Teen Wolf”. I am not sure why this is important. It has no bearing on the plot, and could easily be missed. There may be no references to cell phones and internet, but I didn't notice.
ALLIE JO'S MISTAKE
Allie Jo makes a mistake, and I liked the idea of it (as I often find characters too cardboard and unrealistic). But her motivation is strange. Instead of realizing how naive she was to believe Tara's fantastic story, she thinks that Tara needs a family to help her. And the reason that Chase doesn't understand, is that he only has a dad, not a mom and dad like she does.
This makes no sense. If anything, because Chase doesn't have an intact family, he would see how important it is to Tara. While Allie Jo might not understand, having grown up with a family and not knowing how it was without one. After all, she gets punished by her parents twice in the book, and even seems embarrassed that her dad only has a two year degree.
CLIMAX
The climax is rather short actually, and nothing overly surprising happens. The villain of the story is easily bested after he learns of Tara's location. And besides a little running and hiding, not much happens.
CONCLUSION
Both Allie Jo and Chase are likable and relatable. Both have their own problems and their kindness leads them to look after Tara. There is a good use of humor throughout and plenty of charm. But I never really believed that Tara was crazy (as there was no proof) nor did I believe that she would stay at the Meriwether forever. So the story is rather predictable. I give “The Summer of Moonlight Secrets” three stars.
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