Me (Moth) by Amber McBride
Hi, I am Sarah. I am fourteen years old and an avid reader; it is one of my favorite things to do. Inspired by authors’ creations of magnificent places and surprising havens built by simple letters, I aspire to be an author and, meanwhile, nurture the love to write.
At first glance, this is a story about falling in love on winding roads. A YA, romance/road-trip novel-in-verse—but don’t be afraid to look deeper, because Me (Moth) is not your run-of-the-mill story. It is so much more.
The story unfolds to reveal Moth, a seventeen-year-old girl who is isolated, afraid to spread her dusty wings, afraid to live too big. Moth has been severed from her roots, severed from her family in a car crash, and subsequently severed from the things that make her feel alive.
Moth crosses paths with Sani, a boy who is similarly depressed, probing for his own roots. He has left his dad behind in the Navajo nation, but he is not happy here in Virginia. So when both of their adults fail them, Sani and Moth decide to leave, hoping to heal through connection with the ghosts of their Black and Native American ancestry.
Spun through the limited words is enough meaning to fill a thousand moonlit nights and more, moths of creative wisdom scattered through its beam. McBride has crafted a novel that is tough, thoughtful, and intricate. In it, she encompasses the whole of her characters and their journeys, sprinkled through with ancestry, prayer, pain, and hope.
Me (Moth) ranks among my favorite books not because I tend to love every book I touch, but because, unlike every book I touch, it filled me too full, until I could barely breathe through its inexplicable appeal that you could only know if you read it too.
