Published by: Bloomsbury
Pub. Date: September 10th 2010
Genre: YA – Paranormal Romance
ISBN read copy: 9781599905105
Source: Bought
Format/pages: Hardcover, 244
Date read: September 21st 2011
My rating: 
Brief summary: “Seventeen-year-old Avery can remember nothing to explain her parents violent death in the wood where they live, but after meeting Ben, a mysterious new neighbor, she starts to believe some of the stories she’s heard about the creatures in the forest..”
The summary of this book literary screams cliché. “Low red moon” follows the YA-formula to extent, in the first 80% of this book nothing is surprising it comes just as you imagine it, just like it does in a million other paranormal YA-books. The only exception you’ll find is that in this book the “awkward heroine” is pulled out much further than in other book and some how it turn out a little burlesque.
The heroine in this story is the homeschooled freak that lives in the wood, she only wears secondhand clothing and they don’t even have a phone. When we meet her she’s stopped being homeschooled and goes to an actual high-school, where she of course have no friends except one false one. After her parents are murdered a part of her hair turns into a blood-red color and people at school think she’s cured. The only family she has left is her grandma which she have to live with in the city. The Ben arrives at school and seems to have a weird interest in her, which makes room for an awkward romance to set roots.
As I stated earlier this book was highly predictable, but from the beginning of it I had high hopes for the book but one by one they got crushed. The romance in this novel develops too fast, it’s just a meet and great before Avery and Ben gets desperate to get physical. It feels like most of the book and the characters are undeveloped, and something is missing, especially in the protagonist. There should be a small glimpse of what Avery’s life was like before the murder of her parents, that way she would’ve been a much more dynamic character and she would have developed more clearly. And it would be easier to care about her and what she’s gone through.
There are put in many elements in this story that isn’t explained at all, which of course leave room for a sequel.
Through the book it’s very easy to spot the killer as the book follows a very much used formula. The book is a big mish-mash of paranormal romance, murder mystery, environmental mysticism, and that mish-mash isn’t explained in the end, there are many loose ends which makes it unbelievable that this is a standalone book (I believe there will be a sequel somewhere down the road).
However, there are no books one can only say bad things about, so now I’m moving on to say something nice. The strongest character in “Low red moon” has to be Avery’s grandmother. She hasn’t been in Avery’s life for years because of an argument between the grandmother and Avery’s parents, and the most touching part about this book is to what distance she is willing to walk to rebuild her relationship with her granddaughter. If the book at focused more on this, developed the very static murder mystery more and removed the awkward paranormal romance “Low red moon” would probably have a much better potential.
That a side, if there is a sequel I would probably read it as it is a very intriguing story there about the wolves and how they were taking human brides in exchange for peace treaties. As a series it has potential even though this is a sloppy beginning.
Signed,
Lindea
“Low Red Moon” is available through Amazon.com
