“I can’t remember ever being as happy as I was when I thought I could reach the moon.”

 Find the Moon by Beth Fehlbaum is a heartbreaking yet inspiring story about healing from abuse through the faith, love, and open arms of family and friends.

Fifteen-year-old Kylie Jean (just Kylie!) Briscoe takes care of her little sister, Aliza, because their mom, Matilda, is a drug addict and apparently owes her dealer quite a bit of money. What’s the easiest way to pay off that debt? Matilda has no problem pushing her oldest daughter into “squaring the deal” through sex, but Kylie finally says NO! When the cops come and arrest Matilda, Kylie immediately regrets her decision to seek help for herself and her sister.

Kylie’s grandparents, Honey and Papa, are thrilled to have Kylie back into the family fold in Texas, but Kylie has a long road of healing ahead of her, filled with new high school pitfalls, emotional outbursts, and a stubborn streak a mile long.

Find the Moon is a quick-paced bildungsroman, tracing Kylies journey from a broken girl with far too many responsibilities and heartache to a teenager in a household with an abundance of love; dogs; and baby goats. Add in a new friend, Ethan, and Kylie might just touch that moon after all.

Beth Fehlbaum’s writing is quite engaging, pulling the reader into Kylie’s dilemmas, resolutions, and much needed self-forgiveness. While Find the Moon is a great young adult coming of age story, it falls neatly into an action thriller at times, providing readers with quite the agile fiction. Word of Caution! While the story is not sexually explicit, the dialog frequently gets rough, so be prepared for some salty language, including some F-bombs, from kids and adults alike. This colorful language is realistic, though, considering the sensitive topics of abuse, bullying, and resentment, but Honey’s and Papa’s almost smothering love toward their granddaughter more than softens the harsh edges and gives Kylie a safe and structured place to land and grow.

I received a free copy of this book from Lone Star Book Blog Tours in exchange for my honest review.

Beth Fehlbaum is the author of the young adult novels Find the Moon, Big Fat Disaster (on the Spirit of Texas-High School Reading List, 2014-2015), Courage in Patience, Hope in Patience (A YALSA Quick Pick for Reluctant Readers), and Truth in Patience. With Dr. Matt E. Jaremko, Beth co-wrote the creative nonfiction book, Trauma Recovery: Sessions with Dr. Matt. She is a high school English teacher.

Authenticity, calling out hypocrisy, and finding one’s voice are frequent themes in Beth’s work, and they are absolutely essential themes in her life, as well. Beth has a B.A. in English, minor in secondary education, and an M.Ed. in reading. Beth is in-demand as an author-panelist, having presented/appeared at the Texas Library Association Annual Conference, the American Library Association’s annual conference, YALSA, N.C.T.E./ALAN, and numerous YA book festivals. She’s a member of The Author’s Guild, SCBWI, Romance Writers of America, and the Texas Federation of Teachers.  She loves doing school visits and meeting teens, teachers, and librarians!

Beth lives in the woods of East Texas in a house on a slice of family acreage. The home was built by her family over one very hot humid summer, a task she wishes never to repeat again. This sanctuary-of-sorts is lined by pine trees, and the woods are inhabited by raccoons, possums, and feral cats. All of these creatures appear to consider Beth their cat-food-providing goddess. There is no place she would rather be.