Review of the Day: The Moon Without Stars by Chanel Miller

The Moon Without Stars
By Chanel Miller
Philomel (an imprint of Penguin Random House)
ISBN: 9780593624555
$17.99
Ages 12-14
On shelves now

A lot of books claim to feel like Judy Blume’s Are You There, God? It’s Me Margaret, but nine times out of ten that just means that they either discuss religion and/or they discuss periods. Folks forget that the hallmark of Blume’s book was that it felt transgressive to read. Point of fact, for all that folks paint her with a rosy hue, many of Blume’s books were willing to “go there”. There’s sex and masturbation and people eating live turtles when you least expect it. To be frank, I was fairly certain, up until this exact moment in time, that with the state of publishing as it is today (marketing teams, sales teams, considerations of what might sell at Barnes & Nobles or what might get banned) you probably couldn’t get a book like Judy Blume’s out on shelves anymore. So a hat tip and a jaw drop to Chanel Miller for so splendidly, gloriously, marvelously proving me wrong. I don’t know what alignment of stars allowed this title to make it onto shelves, but whatever it was, let’s not jinx it!

“… seventh grade would be a vicious churn of revelation, catastrophe, excitement, and exile that all began the day I said, ‘Okay’.” There’s a lot that’s comfortable in Luna’s life. She’s had her best friend, Scott, by her side since forever. The kids at school are all the same, and will seventh grade be all that different from sixth? But then she agrees to take all the books from Poppy Lee’s mom. Poppy died the year before and when Luna inherits her books, she starts finding ways to share them with the classmates that need them most. What begins as philanthropic soon becomes a system. But the more she helps others, the more Luna gains their notice. When June, the most popular girl in her grade, takes Luna under her wing, the results will be giddy and tragic all at once. A breathtakingly honest and realistic depiction of middle school in all its warts and glory.

I alternate between reading books and listening to their audiobook companions. This book was an audiobook listen (at least at first). Audiobooks are great, but they have one significant flaw. When you run across an off-handed comment, double backing to check on it is a lot harder than when you’ve the text in hand. Case in point, the small details that slowly proved to me that this wasn’t the typical middle grade novel I’d assumed it to be. I think the first clue was the brief mention of masturbation that pops up amongst the many anonymous notes that Luna receives in her tree. Later, it’s an honest-to-god discussion in class between two boy doofuses about dolphins raping people. Honestly, when that happened I found myself completely aware that what I had on my hands wasn’t young stuff at all. This is a blazingly honest discussion of what middle school kids actually do, think, and say. There’s vaping, instructions for inserting tampons (which is going to prove to be VERY useful for more than one female-associating reader), why you shouldn’t send boys photos of your boobs, and a lot more. It is, in short, gross in all the ways puberty itself is gross.

Now the nice thing about great writing is that it can work in tandem with gross just fine. If anything, gross can potentially heighten the experience. And the thing that will strike you long before you begin wondering how in the heck those dolphins got in there in the first place, is the fact that Miller is an extraordinary writer on every level. From a structural standpoint she kicks everything off with a great premise, moves on to making her heroine relatable and likeable, then backtracks to feature temptations, our heroine succumbs, and then must redeem herself again by the end. Luna at the beginning of this book seems, at first, perhaps just a little too much of a good thing. She’s practically a therapist for the other kids. Then the complexity seeps in, but not before you’ve been treated to some truly choice writing. Just skimming the Prologue, for example, Luna considers her best friend Scott and she feels “neutral toward him like I would toward a penguin.” Or about Miki, “Miki’s got air in her dome, but she’s sweet; her clothes are bow-laden, and she once spelled bikini with a Q, so people don’t take her seriously.” I’m going to stop myself there because a person could go on for quite a long time, pulling out key turns of phrase from this book for fun.

But to get back to the arc of the book, I understand putting your main character through trials and tribulations (murder your darlings, right?). Yet I’ve rarely encountered in a middle school book a story of a heroine who begins by doing good in the world, connecting with other people, slowly expanding her social circle, and learning more about who she really is. Then that personality takes a deep dive southward as she becomes one of the nastiest kids in just the span of a few chapters. Miller had to make that change not only believable in the time in which it happens, but comprehensible in a first-person narrative. I suppose a first person narrative allows you to watch the justifications build up in the main character’s brain with more ease. Luna’s downfall comes from the seduction of popularity, sure, but there’s a little more too it than that. If the mean girls were just that, mean, then you may as well just watch Mean Girls rather than read this book. But Miller gives her main baddie June just enough intelligence and sympathy to make her more than just a toxic wastedump of a human. She discusses her eating disorder (and makes it clear why they’re awful) and is the one to tell Luna never to send naked pictures to the boy you’re with. It’s a clever way to put the reader in Luna’s shoes. When these things come out, Luna’s at a sleepover, which in typical children’s book parlance is the precise time to have some kind of terrible experience. Instead, she bonds with these girls… while also starting something with them that will lead to her own eventual downfall.

Naturally it’s not all sunshine and roses. I have issues with this book. Well, one issue. One particularly prominent issue. I am 99% certain (and my copy neither confirms nor denies this fact) that Chanel Miller did her own cover for this book. And if this were yet another rote my-best-friend-isn’t-my-best-friend-anymore middle grade drama I’d have no issue with it. There’s a big old Maxi-pad on the cover, but beyond that this is pretty standard stuff. The trouble is that it reads young. It looks like you could slot it in next to all the other titles for 9-year-olds and it would fit right in. But the text of this story is straight up middle school. Not elementary and not high school. Junior High, my friends. And as such, this book jacket image is way way way too young. It’s cute. It’s playful. It’s entirely and utterly misleading. I mean, this book is smart in a way that so many other titles could only wish to be. It’s also perfectly aware of its own audience. So why did its cover image not get the message? Folks are going to start reading this to their kiddos as a bedtime book and discover all too soon that while it may be many things, bedtime fare it ain’t.

There are books out there that you share with your kids, and then there are books that you step back and let them read on their own without your input. I consider some classics like Harriet the Spy to fall into that latter category. The Moon Without Stars belongs there too. There’s such a raw honesty to this title that it’s going to leave adults feeling unnerved and kids feeling like they’re getting away with something just by reading it. That Chanel Miller’s writing is some of the strongest literary fiction coming out today is without question. But shhhh! Keep it to yourself, children. That’s just between you and this book.

On shelves now.

Source: Galley sent from publisher for review.

Filed under: Best Books, Best Books of 2026, Reviews, Reviews 2026