Review: The Girl Who Drank the Moon, by Kelly Barnhill
Veiled in the comfort of a child’s tale, Kelly Barnhill spins a story of gender and life, power and knowledge, memory and perception, and most importantly, family, both given and found.
Discussion with spoilers.
Gender and Life
The Girl Who Drank theMoon is an empowering story that centers around four women and one man. Itdelves into concepts of gendered roles of parenthood and caretaker that takethem in ways that I did not expect.
One of the core narratives is the relationship between thetown craftsman and the woman he falls in love with. Their love is dynamic andtheir relationship is one of true love, meaning here that they care for andtake care of each other. Instead of a story of a princess in a tower, we aregiven the tale of a husband and wife who work together with a desire to protectand serve the other. This selflessness made me think and consider how I want mypersonal relationships to be. Do I go out on my own to care for that person,just as that person does the same for me? This one of the many examples ofBarnhill questing after what gender roles mean for people and how they fulfilland overcome them.
Power and Knowledge
The knowledge within the Protectorate, the main geographicaltown in the story, is hidden and stowed away in a tower. In keeping this knowledgein a tower, Barnhill provides us with a strong lesson for how knowledge can bekept from people in order to grant power over them. Many of her positions onpower made me (re)consider Foucauldian ideas of power and knowledge.
Memory and Perception
Memory is lost in this story, and then it is restored.Barnhill plays with how we perceive each other by casting a spell over her maincharacter, Luna, who forgets all about magic. In juxtaposed scenes, we movebetween Luna and her grandmother, Xan, with Luna unable to see the magic andXan able to see it. This disjointed perception of each action and scene allowsus to muse on how perception affects memory and memory changes perception.
Family, Given andFound
The core narrative is that of a town who gives up theirchildren in order to appease the evil witch in the woods. When the witch in thewoods finds these children, she takes them to another land and gives them upfor adoption. One child, though, she takes as her own grandchild, Luna, ourprotagonist. What I find so complex in this story is that family is both givenand found. Family is found in the relationship Luna has with the family shebelieves to be her true family—a witch, a bog god, and a dragon—but family isgiven in the devotion her mother who is forced to give her up holds for her forthirteen years. We see that family is not simply a mother, a father, and children;family is complex and nuanced.
Spinning and Veiling
The final thing I want to note is Barnhill’s beautifulprose. I reacted emotionally not only to the actions of the characters but alsoto the words that brought them to life. Christina Moore’s voice was part ofthat with her wonderful narration; however, the physical words, the choicesmade by Barnhill, gave the entire story a lilt and airiness that invited you tonestle your mind into the world of words and never come out. The words were themother’s breast a child lays its head on, the warm cave a bear hibernates in,and the fuzzy blanket that surrounds one on a crisp winter morning.
THE GIRL WHO DRANK THE MOON
388 pp. / 9 hrs. 31 mins. Algonquin.
IndieBound | Amazon | Barnes and Noble
This book was listened to inits audiobook format, narrated by Christina Moore.
