Review: Six Moon Summer by S.M. Reine

Title: Six Moon Summer Series: Seasons of the Moon #1 Author: S.M. Reine Publisher: Red Iris Books Format: eBook, 198 pages Published: March 15, 2011 My Copy: Received for review. Rating: Buy: Rylie’s been bitten. She’s changing. And now she has three months to find a cure before becoming a werewolf… forever. Rylie Gresham hates everything about summer camp: the food, the fresh air, the dumb activities, and the other girls in her cabin. But the worst part is probably being bitten by a werewolf. Being a teenager is hard enough, but now she’s craving raw flesh and struggles with uncontrollable anger. If she doesn’t figure out a way to stop the transformation, then at the end of summer, her life is worse than over. She’ll be a monster.

I was happy to see that S.M. Reine didn’t adopt too many of the overdone werewolf clichés in Six Moon Summer. I love shifter books but after you’ve read as many as I have often times the plots begin to overlap. Although this novel is quite predictable and the writing style is a little more simplistic than what I normally prefer; Six Moon Summer got the job done where it counts. The story line is fresh, the main character is charming and as a whole, this Young Adult read wasn’t too “teen” for me.

The backbone of this book is solid. I enjoyed the mythology and how the story unfolded. I liked the fact that the majority of this novel takes place at summer camp. It was a nice change of scene from the usual high school backdrop. I think the location had a lot to do with making Six Moon Summer feel less teeny bopper-ish. I’m grateful for this tweak because honestly, I’ve had it up to here with teenage drama. The local legends of the mountain on which the camp is located were a neat addition to the plot. The books Riley uses for research and the ruins scattered through the area helped to add credibility to what was befalling Miss Gresham.

Riley is an interesting character and I really enjoyed getting inside her head. She does have a few childish moments but that was to be expected given her age. The one thing that really irked me though was how quickly she said “I love you” to Seth. They’d hung out a couple of times without ever going on a real date and all of a sudden she drops the L-bomb. Eeck! Other than that though I really felt for her; being a teenager is already not easy without adding extra stressors like family problems or, the most obvious one, turning into a werewolf. I also liked that her battles weren’t all life-or-death. Riley struggles with little things too such as remaining a vegetarian while slowing turning into a carnivore. These humorous bits helped to lighten up an otherwise rather dark book.

Aside from Riley, I didn’t connect with any of the other characters. I found them to be underdeveloped and two dimensional. There was a lack of descriptions and background stories for the remainder of the crew. They were kinda just there; tools to help the story progress. Even Seth, Riley’s love interest, left me feeling lukewarm. The predictability of the plot line and the antagonists were somewhat of a let down as well. Six Moon Summer is a nice leisurely read but it’s definitely not a page turner because I almost always knew exactly what was going to happen next.

The story wrapped-up pretty nicely at the end so I’m curious to see how S.M. Reine handles the next installment, All Hallows’ Moon. Although there is no real wow factor in this book; the story itself is original and the pacing is decent. Six Moon Summer is a great addition to the werewolf genre and I’ll definitely be checking out the next novel sooner rather than later.

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