Purple Moon by Tessa Emily Hall (Purple Moon; 1)

The Synopsis:

Facing pressure from new friends, Selena must decide if she can you be her true self when everyone wants her to be someone else.
Her dad kicked Selena and her mom out of the house. Now she finally has a chance for a new beginning for Selena. Except that she has to spend the summer with her snobby cousin in Lake Lure, NC while her mom gets help in a rehab facility. When Selena gains the attention of the cute neighbor next door she thinks her summer might turn out pretty good. But when her best friend back home betrays her and reveals things about Selena no one should know, she becomes the target of nasty pranks.
Facing the scars from her past and pressure from new friends, Selena must decide if she can you be her true self when everyone wants her to be someone else.

This book was bought and read in my own time, therefore I was not required to write a review and all opinions are entirely my own.

Review:

“…without the dark, we’d never see the stars. There also would be no use for the moon if there was never night.” –Purple Moon

In Purple Moon, we read about Selena as she deals with very real struggles in her family, with her friends, and of course, with herself. She combats these problems head on, but when her efforts fail, she questions why she should even fight them if she’ll never succeed. And when Christianity is presented to her, she gawks at it because her problems are “too real” to be handled with a false hope. But her Christian friends seem to be have genuine happiness no matter what they’re going through, and as much as she doesn’t want to admit it, she wants that.

I absolutely love this book! It came alive to me in such a realistic way and I could relate to it so much! Not Selena in particular, but the youth group she attends was similar to my own growing up, the camping trips brought back memories, and even some of the characters reminded me of my own childhood friends. It’s just a “real” book with a real purpose, and its message was so powerful.

There are some topics at hand such as smoking, drinking,”making out”, a mention of porn, and some mentions of cutting/suicidal thoughts, however they are presented so that teens can know how to deal with these issues with God’s grace. There was no cursing and no sex scenes.

I could probably go on and on about how much I love this book, so I’ll just stop and say “5 stars!” and recommend it to all my teen friends 😉