If I’m honest I don’t think I knew that the word “blurb”, when describing that bit written on the back of a book, was an official term until my daughter started school and they started learning all about the different things that make up a book. I obviously knew about authors, titles, contents pages, indexes etc etc, but I hadn’t realised blurb was an official name. It was always just that “bit on the back cover”. The thing you read when browsing in a bookshop and looking for something for a bit of escapism. When someone sent me the blurb for Ginny Moon (purchase here from Amazon UK) there was something that just instantly made me feel like I had to read this book.
Fourteen year old Ginny is autistic and has been fostered for most of her life. She lives in her fourth Forever Home after being removed from her mother’s care for her own safety. In many ways she is like a typical 14 year old – she plays flute in the school band and has weekly basketball practice, but there are also many ways in which Ginny is different. For breakfast every morning she needs to have nine grapes. She has a bit of a “thing” for Michael Jackson. She is also obsessed with finding her real Mom and getting back to her “baby doll”.
For many children in foster care having a Forever Home is the ultimate goal. Somewhere they can stay forever. Somewhere they can be safe. Somewhere they are loved and looked after. Ginny has all that, but it doesn’t mean she wants to stay there. The complete opposite in fact. She wants to get herself kidnapped. She wants to go back to the mum who didn’t care for her. And she doesn’t seem to care about what she would lose in the process.
I’ve not yet quite finished Ginny Moon, but I am absolutely loving reading it. The style in which the story is written fits with Ginny’s autism perfectly. The slightly staccato style. The attention to details with things like the exact timings on each chapter. Knowing people with autistic traits, I could seem many of their’s in Ginny behaviour and vice versa. Benjamin Ludwig has captured them perfectly in his written word, and the picture he paints of Ginny comes alive on the page. It’s hard to believe that this is his debut novel. It’s so well written and so easy to lose yourself in. I’ll definitely be keeping an eye on what he writes next, but until then I’m off to find out what happens next to Ginny and if she is ever reunited with her baby doll.
Ginny Moon is published in hardback by Story HQ on 1 June 2017. ISBN: 978-1848455429 Priced at £12.99
Disclaimer: I was sent a copy of Ginny Moon for the purposes of this review. All opinions remain my own. This post contains affiliate links.
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