Due to her mother's recent move to Italy, 16-year-old Cynda is on the Maine coast to spend the next six months with her father, her stepmother, and her 5-year-old half-brother Todd. The family owns the Underhill Inn, an isolated old stone house that the locals say is haunted.
Cynda's father scoffs at the idea of the supernatural, but she is more inclined to believe. She settles into the household, though she longs for a closer relationship with her father, is uncomfortable with her young (read: home-wrecker) stepmother and is annoyed by her attention hog of a brother.
Although guests are unusual in January, a guest arrives. He's about thirty, mysterious, handsomer-than-handsome, a poet, sensitive, charming, and intelligent. Cynda is drawn to him -- and it seems that he is drawn to her, too. He is everything her family is not, and it seems that he offers what they do not -- he is attentive to her, he understands her...
But Vincent Morthanos is more than he appears, and while falling under his spell is all too easy, escaping it may be impossible.
I started Look For Me By Moonlight last night and woke up early this morning to finish it -- I got so into it that there was much yelling at the book and to Josh while reading the second half. (He was drinking coffee in the living room and, I suspect, only half listening.)
Some excerpts (of my yelling, not from the book -- and while I'm trying to avoid major spoilers, some can't be avoided):
Me: What the hell!? The father just said there are only two seasons in Maine, 11 months of winter and one month of summer! God.
Josh: A lot of people say that!
Me: But he left out mud season, blackfly season, tourist season... Then again, he isn't FROM here. He just moved here, like, ten years ago. So it's not like he's local.
I got over my Maine issues pretty early on, by the way -- once I realized that it was really only set here so it could be isolated and cold and could just have easily be set in Cornwall or Colorado (minus the coastal thing), I relaxed. Onward.
Me: This guy's name is Vincent Morthanos! If he's Death, I'll give him a pass for the name, but if he's a vampire, that totally means that he chose it for himself, and so he's a complete a-hole!
Josh: Man, why are you reading this book?
Me: What do you mean? It's awesome.
I mean, really. How ridiculous is that name? MORT? THANOS?
Me: EEEeeeeeeeeew! Ha ha ha. I LOVE THIS BOOK! Totally perfect for showing the utter creepiness of Edward Cullen. When the centuries-old guy looks thirty instead of seventeen, it's WAY GROSS instead of pretendy romantic. Yecch! I love it.
Josh: ... ... ...
Me: I mean, it's hilarious that this book is on, like, every Twilight readalike list out there, because it's pretty much the polar opposite. Oh man, I'm going to make all of the Twihards at the library read it. Heh heh heh.
Josh: ... ... ...
So OBVIOUSLY I enjoyed it. Hugely. I found Cynda hard to like at times -- selfish, self-absorbed and annoying, but I also felt like she felt like a real person, so that isn't a complaint -- if anything, it was nice to read about a heroine who was far from perfect. At first I had a hard time with her brother -- during the first half of the book, his dialogue reads like something out of a soap opera -- but due to the second half, I ultimately gave him higher-than-passing marks. I don't want to give away the reason. Her father was a jackass, and a bit of a stock character -- self-involved writer, frustrated by his melodramatic teenaged daughter -- but he works.
I think part of the reason the book worked for me so well, oddly, is that Cynda is rather melodramatic and prone to cheesy romantic fantasy:
I always had trouble making friends, especially boyfriends. I'd been in love dozens of times, but it was always the unrequited kind. I'd fall for a boy because his eyes were the color of fog or his smile was as warm as candlelight or his laugh reminded me of sleighbells at Christmas. I'd worship him from across the library or the football field and then watch him fall in love with somebody else--a cheerleader or a gymnast or the star of the class play.
I'm not sure how Hahn made that rather shockingly ridiculous passage work, but she did. I think it's because Cynda's voice was spot-on -- I believed that Cynda would describe someone like that. I could easily imagine her writing really, really terrible fan fiction.
Anyway. I thought it was a hugely entertaining book, and an excellent -- for those who want or need one -- antidote to Twilight.
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Book source: My local library.
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I read this for the R.I.P. IV Challenge.
I have a weird sense that I've read this...but I can't really remember it. However the cover is WAY familure and since I did read most of the YA section at KFL before I moved, it's pretty likely. May have to revisit it, for a laugh. :)
Posted by: Sarah I. | 28 August 2009 at 08:27 AM
I haven't read this book, so I can't comment, but in response to the Maine ranting, you should check out John Connolly's Charlie Parker series. His plots are suspenseful, dark and creepy, his characters are complex, his writing is gorgeous. And even though he's from Ireland, he writes about Maine as though he's lived there his entire life. Highly recommended books!
Posted by: Lindsey Carmichael | 28 August 2009 at 10:34 AM
Ooh, "Twilight" and "Antidote" in the same sentence. Lovely, lovely.
Posted by: tanita | 28 August 2009 at 11:27 AM
Oh, wow, I remember this one. I loved Mary Downing Hahn's books when I was a kid, and this one really sold me on the creepiness - not only of the atmosphere and the bloodsucking, but the creepiness of losing yourself bit by bit and being unable to tell the ones you love, for all that they wouldn't believe you anyway.
Posted by: Neva | 29 August 2009 at 09:31 AM
Ah your review...particularly the part about your conversations...had me cracking up! Well done! I'm so glad you enjoyed this, enjoyed it on many levels from the looks of it.
Love the cover, by the way.
Posted by: Carl V. | 31 August 2009 at 04:47 PM
I remember seeing this book when I was little, and really really wanting to read it because the title was a line from a poem I really liked - but it looked way too scary. And now I think I may be too old to read it for the first time...
Posted by: Jenny | 02 September 2009 at 09:40 AM
I've loved this book since I was like twelve. I thought Twilight was going to be something like it, which is why I read it. Meyers sucks. Hahn rocks.
I read nearly all her books. The only one I liked nearly as much as this one was Wait Till Helen Comes.
Posted by: Erika | 17 November 2009 at 02:16 AM
I'm going to have to read more Hahn -- this is the only one I've read! Glad to know that her other stuff is worth it, too.
Posted by: Leila | 18 November 2009 at 11:51 AM
I don't know how I managed to miss getting this on my TBR list when you first posted about this. Well...it's there now.
Posted by: Str4y | 03 December 2009 at 02:04 PM
Does anyone know her email? I saw her and wanted to ask questions but she was too busy signing books. IF anyone knows her email, could you please post it on here!
THanks
Posted by: hannah | 17 March 2010 at 09:28 PM
i didnt love the book. but i thought it was ookayy.... i looooooooove to read, so if u dont know a book that i have read i will definitly help you! my fave book of all time is flowers in the attic by v.c. andrews. if u havent read it you need to read it!!!!!! its dark scary and suspensful and based on a true story, which if u have read, is very awful and so tragic!tell me if uve read it and i will explain what happened and how she came up with the idea to write the book. . .
U
Posted by: djflskj;askdfj | 22 May 2010 at 11:56 AM
i absoluty LOVE this book!!
Posted by: Lexie | 23 September 2010 at 10:43 PM
This is so sad. im almost done with this book-on chapter 13. I think i might cry
Posted by: Madelyn Frazee | 29 October 2011 at 01:46 PM
this book is so amazing iam amost done with the book on chapter 14.
Posted by: nakisha burton | 22 October 2012 at 09:26 PM
i think vincent is a vampire
Posted by: nakisha burton | 22 October 2012 at 09:27 PM
March 17,2014
Dear Mary Downing Hahn
My name is Tempestt Maia Smith My Birthday is January 18,2001 I am in 6th Grade I am a big fan of your books I would like to read more of your books but I don't think my mommy have much money because she is trying to find a place to stay but forget all that can i have some books for free please and thank you awww and i think vincent is a vampire too
Posted by: Tempestt Maia Smith | 17 March 2014 at 12:44 PM
awwww and one more thing if you say no i will understand I love your books There my favorite some of them I have not read but thats ok
Posted by: Tempestt Maia Smith | 17 March 2014 at 12:48 PM