
Member Reviews

2.5 stars
Moonlight and Dust is a YA fantasy following Zillah as she moves school while her sister is in a coma after a mysterious accident. Zillah has always been a good kid but on her quest for answers she finds herself drawn to the school's party scene, where she discovers Nik's old friend group are taking Moondust every weekend and gaining temporary magical abilities.
Firstly, I love seeing Indigenous representation in fantasy!! Zillah and her family are Torres Strait Islanders (as is the author) and the book explores how they view and value their families through hard times. I also like how open Zillah's family are with one another for the most part, especially when discussing Nik's out-of-the-ordinary and rebellious behaviour prior to her accident. This book uses magic to contextualise the real struggles many families face when young people start experimenting with substances and falling in with the wrong crowd.
Unfortunately I struggled to get through this book because despite the characters being in year 12 (so 17-18 years old) they all read like 12-14 year olds. I enjoy YA but the writing is VERY lower YA, almost middle grade level. Which isn't a problem if you know what you're expecting, however generally the age of the main character is a pretty good indicator of the target audience in YA fiction. The dialogue for the most part was incredibly juvenile and I just couldn't picture 17-18 year olds doing the things the characters were doing. As for the fantasy, this definitely belongs in the magical realism sub-genre so that's important to know going in too. I love a potion-based magic system but the actual magic is few and far between sadly.
I would recommend this to pre-teens/young teens or anyone who specifically enjoys books for that age group. It is not lost of me that this author does also write children's books so that's perhaps where their passion/expertise is, I just wish this had been elevated more for an older audience. It is always great to see authors from diverse backgrounds sharing their voices.

This book is fantastic - both in the sense that it has fantasy elements and in the sense that it is excellent. It is classified as YA fantasy. I don't have a lot of experience with YA although I keep hearing how it's changing fast and not what it used to be, but this feels (in a good way) like a book I would have read and enjoyed as a teenager. As someone who is well past being a teenager I enjoyed it as a story. It terms of the other fantastic elements, these moved the story along, but were not really the point, at least the way I read the book. It was refreshing to read about Islanders in a very different way from how this cultural group is often addressed. This book has many themes - family, ethics, friendship, culture which would make it a great book to study at school, or in a book group. Mostly though it was a rollicking good read with strong characters, complex relationships and some action as well.
Thanks to NetGalley and the publishers for a free e0arc in exchange for an honest review.