Music from Beyond the Moon by Augusta Trobaugh

Title: Music from Beyond the Moon
Author: Augusta Trobaugh
Series: N/A
Source: Publisher for Review
Publisher: Bell Bridge Books
Publication Date: April 30, 2012
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She became his soul mate and first love, but can they escape a destiny that was decided before they were born?

In 1920's Florida, an abandoned baby boy grows up under a cloud of mystery, adopted by two strong southern women, who try to protect him from his family's secrets and heartaches. But even their best intentions and deepest devotion can't hide the truth forever. Or soften the fate he must face with the girl he loves.

Augusta Trobaugh's unforgettable novel speaks of loyalty, loss, the difficult choices we make in the name of family, and of courageous hope, each inspired by the fragile and painfully longing music of life, a song that seems to come from beyond the moon.

Music from Beyond the Moon was a book that left me with very complicated and conflicting feelings. For the most part, I really liked it, and I feel that it'll make a mark on the people that read it-- but I can't say that it'll be a good mark. Or a bad mark. One way or the other, they'll remember it. I sure will, because it deals with some tough and taboo subjects. Some that had my gag reflex working overtime-- but we do NOT need to talk about the face I made at one point in this book. (But seriously, if I had a picture it would probably be hilarious.) We need to talk about why  I made that face. But it includes spoilers, so you'll need to highlight in between the brackets if you wanna see it.

{The reason for the face and the gag reflex was Starry and Victor kissing. She was one of the women that raised him, and she's like forty, and she's kissing a 17 year old boy? I was disgusted with her. She was one of my favorite characters before then, but after that I was kind of horrified. Then we have the incest. Which for some weird  reason, doesn't really bother me. They didn't know that they were related, and when Victor found out he left Rebecca. I've gotta give him points for that. Plus it's not like they did the nasty. o_O}

Now that I've told you guys what created "the face", I think that it's time to move on to greener pastures. Like the writing-- it was so vivid, and I really liked the author's voice. She managed to write a book about a boy that isn't told by him. Which I honestly wasn't sure about in the beginning, but I think it added to the depth of our story, because Victor himself never really talked. Fiona, Starry, Glory and Old Man were our main narrators, but we occasionally got a peek into some other characters' minds. Thankfully, the author has a talent for writing multiple points of view, and I never confused myself.

And honestly, I just really adored that the story was told by the people around Victor. Kind of like an old legend, you know? I have so much love for that viewpoint, and for the slow southern honey pacing. But because the pacing was so slow, it brought up another issue. I felt like I had it all figured out by the time the story actually started...and I kind of wish that the story could have started sooner.

All in all, Music from Beyond the Moon was well written and interesting, but the taboo-ness and the slow bits brought my overall rating down.

Love isn't any music from beyond the moon. It isn't mysterious at all. In fact, it's really perfectly simple-- love is an old Victrola with cracked and fuzzy sounding records to play on it, but the songs are familiar.
The songs are the ones we all know. ~ Pg. 154