The Girl Who Chased the Moon - Sarah Addison Allen

I was seriously spellbound by this book. I started out during my morning workout and couldn't turn it off. Luckily, I had one of those work days where it was all manual stuff that didn't require me to really think about what I was doing, making copies and the like. So, I just breezed through it in a day. It's only 7 hours and narrated by one of my favorites, Rebecca Lowman.

 

This is a light and fun story revolving around two Emily and Julia who both have some pretty big baggage. Julia has her own baggage, Emily inherited it from her mother. Their stories are woven together well and in a way that makes sense. I love that the older characters have clearly grown since the years that they recall when around Emily. The world building is wonderful and the town is just adorable. I have a particular soft spot for stories set in these gentile parts of the South, partly because even this idea of the South is a beautiful illusion. To me, it lends a lot to the story. The feel was reminiscent of Beautiful Creatures

 

Despite that the overall story is rather light, it does deal with some deeper issues. I won't lay out which ones because I don't want to spoil anything, but suffice it to say that this story deals a lot with forgiveness, those who deserve it, those who don't and those who won't get it either way.