BOOK REVIEW: MOON CHILD BY GABY TRIANA

18/5/2021

The world today seems keener than ever to punish teenagers for the crime of being young, so it’s cheering to encounter a book that depicts the ordeals they go through in detail, but also allows that a future might be possible for some – if they can avoid sinking into despair.

Like many Europeans brought up on Miami Vice and Elmore Leonard books, I find the state of Florida a fascinating blend of the attractive (Art Deco architecture, beautiful landscapes etc.) and the repulsive (think Disneyland and white supremacy.) This “Florida Gothic” element is what made me pick up Gaby Triana’s latest YA novel Moonchild. Its heroine Vale, a teenage girl with burgeoning psychic abilities, bolts from her suffocating Miami Catholic home and falls in with a band of other young psychics all set on investigating Sunlake Springs, a decaying rural estate with a long history of horror.

Sure enough, Triana squeezes every last drop of local violence and prejudice from the state’s history and makes great use of Sunlake’s split personality, part healing New Age hotspot, part whirling vortex of hatred. Like Richard Matheson’s Hell House (which is just across the road, thematically speaking), the Springs is built on psychogeological stratae of human misery that gradually manifest through the different characters, who each have their own personal reasons for investigating the secrets of the place.

That said, the pace is anything but geological. I really don’t know why the blurb describes this book as a slow burn, because once Vale has got shot of her relatives the novel goes like the clappers, with real page-turning quality and enough plot twists to keep the novel’s readership constantly on the back foot. In that respect it even compares favourably with quite a few adult crime novels I’ve read.

This does come at the cost of character development and style, however. The latter is a bit flat and rushed at times, and the spiritual jargon of the psychics’ rituals and chants is awful, though sadly you can’t say it’s not realistic. Character-wise, I liked the diverse cast, but some of the psychics are still pretty stereotyped, especially the mandatory tortured bad-boy Goth (and anyone who thinks it’s impossible to do that kind of character without resorting to stereotypes should check out Johnny from Sarah Singleton’s amazing YA novel The Amethyst Children.) And considering the extremely graphic violence of the horror scenes, the rather coy, muted way in which sex is treated is a bit jarring, though I did like the way characters of all genders are shown going casually topless and even naked without the world coming to an end.

But what of the two most important characters, Vale and the house? The house isn’t great. With the Florida location I was hoping for something along the lines of Simon Kurt Unsworth’s snarling, beautiful Art Deco nightmare, the Ocean Grand Hotel, but as a location Sunlake Springs never has time to quite come into focus, even though the hauntings themselves are often very vivid. Vale, however, is a worthwhile and likeable heroine whose problems and emotions seem real and immediate. Triana does a terrific takedown of the evils attached to the unthinking acceptance of inherited religious belief. Although she’s a calm and patient kind of girl, Vale is labouring under a burden of quiet anger, much of it due to the sexual hypocrisy built into her churchy social milieu – a fertile breeding-ground for homophobia and sexual abuse.

If this in itself is hardly a revelation, the point is made unusually well via a sharp, nuanced examination of how people within a community treat each other. Vale’s anger and distress are only too alive, and her problems are shared by all women to some extent, regardless of background. Fortunately, with the help of her friends Vale is able to use these bad feelings to propel herself forward, and ultimately Moonchild has an optimistic message. The world today seems keener than ever to punish teenagers for the crime of being young, so it’s cheering to encounter a book that depicts the ordeals they go through in detail, but also allows that a future might be possible for some – if they can avoid sinking into despair.

By Daisy Lyle

Moon Child by Gaby Triana

The Craft meets The Shining in this slow-burn Florida gothic horror. 18-year-old Cuban-American Valentina Callejas was raised to do what her Catholic grandparents say to do. But Valentina feels a different pull--an affinity with nature, a desire to read tarot cards and study the occult. After ditching her church retreat, Valentina flees home and ends up five hours away at Macy’s house, a half-sister she’s never met until now.When a mysterious wolf leads Valentina to the abandoned Sunlake Springs Resort, she meets the “clairs,” young psychics drawn to the hotel’s haunted history. They’ve been waiting for her, they say, to open a magical entryway to the spirit world. But Valentina’s sensitive hands tell a different story--of anguished spirits, menacing cracks, and hooded ghosts of Florida’s hateful past. Even a local legend, the beautiful “Lady of the Lake,” hints to the hotel’s sinister history. To protect the clairs from the horrors awaiting them on the other side, Valentina must use her growing powers and decide, once and for all, if she’s the witch she was always meant to be.