Review: “An Arrow to the Moon” by Emily X.R. Pan

Release Date: April 12, 2022
Publisher: Little, Brown Books for Young Readers
Genre: YA, Fantasy

Description

Romeo and Juliet meets Chinese mythology in this magical novel by the New York Times bestselling author of The Astonishing Color of After.

Hunter Yee has perfect aim with a bow and arrow, but all else in his life veers wrong. He’s sick of being haunted by his family’s past mistakes. The only things keeping him from running away are his little brother, a supernatural wind, and the bewitching girl at his new high school.Luna Chang dreads the future. Graduation looms ahead, and her parents’ expectations are stifling. When she begins to break the rules, she finds her life upended by the strange new boy in her class, the arrival of unearthly fireflies, and an ominous crack spreading across the town of Fairbridge.As Hunter and Luna navigate their families’ enmity and secrets, everything around them begins to fall apart. All they can depend on is their love…but time is running out, and fate will have its way.

An Arrow to the Moon, Emily X.R. Pan’s brilliant and ethereal follow-up to The Astonishing Color of After, is a story about family, love, and the magic and mystery of the moon that connects us all.

My Thoughts

Two households, both alike in dignity, in fair Fairbridge, where we lay our scene. Luna Chang has everything. Her middle-class parents are upwardly mobile and well-educated. They dote on her – she would describe it as them being over­protective and overbearing – and only want the best for her. She’s well liked and Stanford bound. Hunter Yee’s family has nothing. They’re always on the move, always looking over their shoulders. His father is bitter, his mother exhausted, and his younger brother Cody anxious. The Yees and the Changs must share space in Fairbridge’s Chinese American community, but their mutual enmity is an open secret. When our star-cross’d lovers, Hunter and Luna, finally meet, no amount of pa­rental strife can keep them apart.

Read the rest of this review at Locusmag.com.

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