Young Adult Review: Night of the Purple Moon by Scott Cramer

Night of the Purple Moon by Scott Cramer

ebook, 186 pages

Published: May 28th, 2012 by Train Renoir Publishing

Source: Author

Abby Leigh is looking forward to watching the moon turn purple, unaware that deadly bacteria from a passing comet will soon kill off older teens and adults. The lightning-fast epidemic sweeps across the planet when the germs attack the hormones produced during puberty.

On a small island off the coast of Maine, Abby must help her brother and baby sister survive in this new world, but all the while she has a ticking time bomb inside of her -- adolescence.

 Night of the Purple Moon is not 'just another dystopian/post apocolyptic' read.  Sometimes these books start blending together, no longer standing out.  Night of the Purple Moon stood out for many reasons.

First of all, I loved that this is all about kids.  Everyone is pre- adolescent, so they're pretty young, but I would hesitate to call this middle grade.  Younger readers may enjoy it, but it has some more mature stuff as well.  It's kind of an in-between age, and while at first I thought I was disappointed they were younger, in the end that was one of my favorite aspects of the book.  These kids are all on their own, so how do they survive like that?

Before I move on to the characters, I have to clear up a few things.  The description says clearly what happens in the beginning of the book, adults and adolescents all are killed because of some space dust.  Now that sounds a little far fetched right?  Well, the author does an amazing job of explaining how, and why, this happens.  He makes it believable, and for that reason it was no longer farfetched, it made perfect sense to me.

Abby, her brother, and the others in the book live on an island off the coast of Maine.  Because of this they aren't in the middle of what you can assume is probably mass hysteria.  While they have their problem kids, for the most part they work out a system and work together.  And this worked remarkably well.  And it was never boring.  Each chapter is a period of time when more notable things are happening.  We get a clear look at how everyone is getting on, but we don't have the boring day to day stuff.  The book takes place over a year.

In the end we do get off the island, and we do see what has happened to the children in America.  While I actually quite enjoyed their time on the island and seeing how they all found ways to survive, I also find it fascinating to see how the majority of kids are surviving.  We get to see the worst of it, some of the worst behavior possible, but we also see the good.  It was a good balance.

The writing is remarkably good.  We get to see the POV (third person) from several different children, but it was the authors ability to switch over that really caught my attention.  It was such a smooth transition and while sometimes we'd only be with a person for a page or two, it was always just the perfect amount.  Nothing was ever abrupt, or forced or odd.  It just all worked so well.  

This is a book that I recommend to ages 12 and up (even younger if they enjoy more mature reads) and anyone who enjoys young adult dystopians or post apocolyptic stories.  It's a book that really crawls under your skin, that makes you think, and at the same time it's extremely easy to read, very hard to put down and it's something you'll think about for quite some time.

Disclosure: I received this book for review purposes, all opinions expressed are my own and I was not paid or influenced in any way.


I actually just posted tour sign ups for the 2nd book, Colony East.  If this book sounds good you should sign up for the tour!  Both books are available for review but Night of the Purple Moon is FREE for Kindle and  & for Nook. Tour Page is HERE.