Review: Tears of the Moon

I finished reading another book today. Tears of the Moon by Di Morrissey. First off I'd like to say that it was a long book at 652 pages. But it was a good read. It captured me. But not at first. The first 76 pages were dull and boring. Some of this is because I found that it takes place in Australia! My knowledge of Australia stops at Crocodile Dundee, LOTR/SW, and "wtf, mate?". So I had to go and look it up on Wikipedia. Pretty interesting. Anyway, there's a lot of bad things about this book, and I wonder why they have a label on the front "by international bestselling author" cause I doubt she's a bestseller. The writing is mediocre at best, and will probably be most likely to entertain older women. Which is another reason I nearly put the book down; because it's targeted to older women.

It starts off very, very slow and boring and dull and makes you want to put the book down. But if you can make it past the first 76 pages it's very entertaining till about page 564. Then it starts getting boring again. So I guess you could say the first 80 pages and the last 80 pages are pretty bad compared to the in-between stuff. But some authors just have trouble with beginnings and endings. And I understand that, I understand having a story you want to tell but not having any idea how to end or start it so you throw garbage at the pages till something sticks. Still, it's not really garbage, I guess that was a bit harsh. But the first 70 pages seriously took me like 5 hours to struggle through which is insanely slow. And I had to actually force myself to finish the book.

Oh, and the prologue? Pointless. Don't take it to have any meaning to anything that happens in the story, other than a "Hey look how dangerous pearling was" shove it in your face kinda thing cause I guess the author felt the rest of the book didn't get that through well enough.

Basically the story is about an older woman (in her 40s) who's mom has died and she finds hints to the past she never knew about and heads off to find her ancestors or something. She's apparently rich too, as she thinks nothing of just hopping on a plane spur of the moment, staying in the fanciest hotel in town, eating at restaurants, and renting cars. But, dunno, maybe money is different down there. Anyway, blah blah random stuff happens and she winds up with a few journals her great grandma wrote and the book moves on to the story in the journals. The journal portion takes up the vast majority of the book, lasting from page 77 to page 636. (which is why I wonder why the tagline reads "two unforgettable women" cause there's only one woman who matters in the story...) It is not written in journal format. It is written as though someone later took the journals and turned them into a book using details gained later on in the journal to supply sides of the story that are not seen by the journal writer's perspective. There's even some stuff that neither the journal writer or the story writer could have possibly known. (like the identity of one of the pilots towards the end) So that's one bad point for the book before I even get on to making my list of bad points! So she reads the journal and then angsts over her past a bit and understands why her mom never told her anything. And that's about all I can say without spoilers.

Spoilers behind the cut!

So, here are my list of bad points against the book.

1. Ok, so it's a super-uber big deal is that Lily's (the one who goes and reads the journal) great-great-great-great-great grandma was an Aborigine. It causes a lot of drama and a lot of angst and a lot of spiritual stuff and somehow the tribe decides she's a relative and member because of this. Uhm, what? She was born to a white man and a white woman, this woman was born to a white man and a white woman, and this woman was born to a white man and an Indian (as in from India) woman, this woman was born to an Indian man and an Indian man, and this woman was born to an Indian man and an Aborigine woman. How does that make her part of the tribe!? Cause if that's all it takes I'm jumping on the first train to whatever Native American tribe it is one of my great-great-etc grandma's came from to see if I get any benefits of being a part of their tribe! Though I bet if I showed up, even if I was 5th generation, they'd go "*blink* So.......?" Just cause I have a Native American in my ancestry doesn't make me a Native American or mean they'd welcome me with open arms as if I was a long lost sister. It was too long ago for anyone to care anymore. Maybe if I was her child it would mean something but I'm her great-great-great-etc grandchild. Just cause you have an ancestor from a certain group five generations ago does not, by default, make you part of that group! Why doesn't she have the same feelings about England, then, since two of her great grandparents came from England? Why doesn't she feel emotional about Scotland since one of her great grandpas came from Scotland! Why doesn't she feel a connection to India since one of her great grandmas came from India! Why does she single out the Aborigines and go "Oh, woe is me! I somehow have tan skin and black hair and different eyes than white people despite being 10/11th white and now I make this shocking discovery! A discovery so many other people have already made and dismissed due to it being so very long ago! WOE and WOE some more! Whatever will my friends think of me! Whatever will my daughter, who is even further related from all this, think of it!" Whatever. Like I said maybe it's an Australian thing but seems a bit far-fetched that it would make anything of this sorta impact on their lives. I mean, yay, I come from all over Europe of varying mixed ancestry with a handful of other stuff thrown in (like that Indian), and do I care? No. Not really. I know there was racial prejudices long ago, but Lily's perspective takes place in the late 90s. You know, the day and age no one cared about such things as much? Course she's old so maybe her reaction is born of memories from years past and her daughter (who I guess is 20-something like I am) would shrug it off the same way I do.

2. The author has "everyone is a friend" syndrome. Lily appears to go about life making friends everywhere. From the stewardess on the plane, to a guy at a museum, to the waitress at a restaurant, to the desk girl at the hotel, to a woman who owns a museum (who, within the first hour of knowing her, offers her exclusive tickets to an art show, and sits on the verandah drinking tea with her), to an entire bar full of men (who crowd around her as if it were a celebrity and they were clamoring for her attention), to an old priest (who just trusts her with one of his most prized possessions, telling her to take it the museum for him), to an old woman sitting by some water fishing (who acts like they've been friends for all their lives and later when she finds out Lily's "part aborigine" she invites her to dinner and tells her she has to come to meet the rest of the "family"), to the woman at the historical society (who gives her as much free coffee as she wants), to the woman who's art is on exhibit at the show (who singles this stranger out to walk her around and explain the inspiration behind each piece), and I'm sure I'm forgetting people. I'd add the tourist info girl but she was probably just friendly cause it's her job. No one has this kind of luck with strangers. Unless Australia's just another world of it's own all of this is very, very improbable.

3. Coincidences! Sometimes I felt like I was reading a bad fanfic or something. A lot of what happens in the book only happens because the author said so, not because reality says so. (kinda like the "friends" up there in point #2) Where to begin? So Lily's great grandma, who's name is Olivia, is first married to this British guy. They have a baby who dies in a fire the ONE day she leaves him alone in the house while she runs out to the yard for a moment. But she starts liking this Scottish guy. The Scottish guy finds an Indian mistress on a random island they randomly set shore at to wait out a storm which just so happens to have a slave market running and he buys her to save her cause she's Indian and his best friend is Indian and asks him to. Olivia has a son. The Indian girl has a daughter. The British guy dies. The Indian girl goes off to be with her "family", taking her daughter with her, and runs into the same slaver who was selling her to begin with! He makes off with her and only her as if he knew where she had been and wasn't there to capture random Aborigines for his market and is only after her and she jumps overboard and gets cut on coral and dies. The daughter stays with the Aborigines who trade her to a missionary for food, the missionary gives the girl for adoption to a white couple in the south. Then Olivia and the Scottish guy were going to be married but just a few hours before the wedding the Scottish guy's actual wife shows up who was presumed dead whom hadn't been in this guy's life for probably like 10 years or so and whom he'd never really liked to begin with. She's gold digging and after money and Olivia runs away. This wife refuses divorce but meets up with..... the same slaver from earlier! And they fall in lust with each other! And they run away together! To smuggle guns! But both wind up killed! By pirates! Yeah, so the Scottish guy goes to Olivia to say they can get married only to find... she's already married this older guy! Dejected he goes home. Like 15 years pass or something and WWI starts and the son goes and joins the navy and gets stationed in... the exact same town that no one knows yet that the daughter had been adopted to! And meets her! Without knowing who she is! And gets her pregnant! Then dies in the war! And this young, pregnant, unmarried woman is somehow alerted that her love has been killed even though I doubt anyone in the navy would think to tell her since they weren't married. She travels aaaaaalllll the way north to live in a house for girls in trouble! Instead of staying in her own town which is a major city and undoubtedly has several such houses! And this house just so happens to be co-owned by Olivia! Who befriends her and makes her her assistant! Without knowing that the woman's daughter is her own granddaughter! And they figure out who each other is because of a photo she just so happens to have of her belated baby-daddy that she's kept all to herself these last 2 years, and a necklace with a symbol on it that was special to her mother that Olivia had somehow never seen before cause the girl only wore it on Sundays and I guess they didn't see each other on Sundays? Then Olivia takes the girl to meet her father (whom they confirm through... guessing! Ok, they do get the adoption paperwork but they never read it and even if they did it wouldn't say who the girl's father is cause the girl was too young to know his name and the missionary didn't know who he was either) who recognizes the girl's mother in her looks. Olivia and the Scottish guy decide to get married. So Olivia goes home to tell her husband that she's a cheating whore and.... her husband has had a stroke! And is a vegetable! So she stays with him and two years later he.... has another stroke! And dies! Finally at age 40-50 something the two lovers finally get married! When they're really too old for it to matter! And somehow their "lovemaking was just as passionate as it was when they were in their 20s" even though that's not how the human body works (as things slow down and stop working...). I'm sure they felt passionate but there's no way it could be exactly the same. Then WWII starts and planes shoot at boats and the Scottish guy and his Indian best friend die within moments of each other, both being shot, even though the book just said that the planes weren't shooting at anything but certain targeted boats that were out on the water and the Scottish guy gets shot on the shore. Then the scene cuts to one of the pilots flying one of the planes who.... just so happens to be the son of one of the Scottish guy's lead divers! And, and, the old woman I mentioned in point #1 is.... the granddaughter of Olivia's house keeper and friend! And the art girl from point #1 is.... the daughter of the old woman! Whew. Did I forget anything? Unless this is a very, very small world all of this is improbable. Yeah, I'm sure some or all of it is probable... on their own. But all of this together? Reality says "No. Rather unlikely I'd do something like this."

4. btw, how is it the art girl from point #1 knows the term "tears of the moon" and treats it like it's an emotional bonding connection to Aborigines when it's stated in the book that that term is an Indian one used by the Indian girl with no connection to the Aborigines?

5. And why does Lily feel special connections to the pearling and Aboriginal stuff at the museums? A person isn't going to wander into a museum and start touching stuff going "oooh I feel something special". That's just weird. Especially if you don't even know it was part of your long past ancestral history.

All in all? If you can overlook all that, sure, give it a read if you're bored and see it at the library. I enjoyed it due to my ability to overlook these flaws.