The Girl Who Drank The Moon Book review

Hello, dear readers! This is Miss A.Misra signing in to recommend you yet another book: The Girl who drank the moon, written by Kelly Barnhill.

Lets delight first of all in the cover art. It’s absolutely gorgeous! The tiny dragon ( Fyrian) is looking adorable and Luna looks totally fitting in the character. I love her posture drawn so efficiently! The moon is glowing and so shiny it’s clear why Luna drank the moonlight. ( Okay, that sounds confusing now, but you will understand later. Moving on!)


 Here’s a summary of the story. I have not really given anything away here. If you don’t really want to know much, feel free to skip the last paragraph.

The people of Protectorate place a baby in a ring of Sycamore trees, at the entrance of the forbidding forest where an evil witch resides, and leave, presuming that the baby would be killed by the witch. This is their baby sacrifice, and their belief is that if they don’t do it, the witch would kill everyone!  However, the witch, Xan, is totally kind, and gentle. A good witch. She has no idea why the children are sacrificed to her, as she never required or wanted anything, and she never even hurt any of the children she was given. She took them lovingly and brought them to the Free Cities, where they were adopted into nice families who did not sacrifice random kids. On the way, she gathered starlight on her fingers to feed the babies with ( Look, I tried to do that too. I tried to reach my hand up and touch the stars, and gather the starlight to eat. It didn’t work. You’re free to try though, and if you succeed send me some), which makes them content and full. They grow up to be called Star-children, and they exude a faint sort of glow. 

Once upon a time, Xan accidentally fed a child moonlight, instead of starlight. Once the baby girl had drunk it, she was enmagicked, ( Yes, that’s a real word, according to the book, anyways.) and was bursting to the brim  with magical powers. When Xan understands  what she has done, she realised that it was too dangerous to just leave the child in an unknowing family. She names her Luna, partly because she has a birthmark shaped like a crescent moon on her forehead, and partly because she had drunk moonlight. Get it? Lunar-Luna? Right? ( I don’t know if you understood but I think you must have, If you haven’t, too bad!)

Luna grows up in her grandmother’s cottage, along with the bog monster glerk, and a simply tiny dragon, called Fyrian. In her toddler years, she continues to use magic all the time, unaware of it herself. To protect her from becoming  a danger to both herself and her surroundings, Xan locks away her magic inside of her for a few years till she turns 13, and then she would learn to control it  and utilise it safely ( or so we think ). But the time keeps ticking, and it seems that Luna’s magic is spilling out of her now. Even worse, Xan is withered, and old. She will die once the young girl turns thirteen. Meanwhile, there is a real witch, in the town of Protectorate itself, who feeds herself on the sorrow of the people ( that’s dark, like really dark ). But who is she? Will she be stopped? Will Xan survive? Will Luna learn how to use her magic and will they survive the process?


My opinion: This book was awesomely amazing! It’s a sort of story that sticks to your mind and makes you think about it and wish the book never ended. ( Okay, but if that wish comes true we won’t be needing any more novels. One book would be enough. ) It’s got a very nicely imagined storyline, and the message given through it is ” Sorrow is a scary thing. It can make people angry, make them sad, or make them insanely depressed. Look towards hope. Think positively.” Or it might be “Don’t accidentally drink Moonlight if you want a normal life.” Or perhaps “Try not to be born in the city named Protectorate,where people sacrifice children to witches when there aren’t any.” You choose.

Also, it has a kind of deep storyline which might take some time to understand. One thing the book lacks is humour. It would have been the prize novel had it got jokes in it. There are some instances where humour is indicated ( very subtly). Like the part where the tiny dragon Fyrian tries to hug the big monster glerk, and he does not really succeed much. Or the parts where a story is told by some mother to her child, in some other part of the world. There are such typical phrases like “Wait till your father gets home.” or ” Okay, one story only, then do your chores!” it makes you smile.


Overall I rate this book a 4.5 out of 5 stars, for ages above 10 years old. It’s a nicely imagined story, and the fact that someone took the childish idea of wanting to drink the moon or eat it, and created that into such a glorious novel is absolutely fantastic! I have not yet read such a lovely story as this one was. Of course, I like Agatha Christie. Her writing style is really good. But there are very few of such books that have magical instances. I especially like the word ” enmagicked.” It’s a lovely word. “Magicked” is used sometimes, for instances like ” He magicked it away” informally, but enmagicked. Ah. That’s totally different. Two letters can make all the difference in the world. Fact proven!

Well goodbye now! See you later in my next post!


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