A Summer of Silk Moths by Margaret Willey first came to my attention a while back due to its less then impressive cover. The author contacted me and said since I was going to bash her cover publicly I should at least be willing to read the book. Fair enough, I thought. So here are my thoughts on the novel itself (written for a YA audience).

As explained in an author's note in the beginning, Silk Moths is a bit of a homage to The Girl of Limberlost. It is set in modern times however and told from the perspective of nature loving Pete, a 17 year old who has always lived in the country and is now happily working to create a nature preserve with his pseudo older brother. The family politics here are a bit complicated: Pete was given up for adoption to the Sheltons, an older couple who knew his mother; he refers to them as his grandparents (his mother apparently ran off and joined a cult). The land for the nature preserve was originally owned by the Sheltons but they sold it to a close friend and moved into a smaller home nearby (because they wanted to retire? I'm not sure why they sold the land.) The friend then died and left the land to her older son, who had to forgo his college plans to raise his younger brother. Older brother Phil then got married and while his wife was barely pregnant, got killed in a car accident. His younger brother Abe, only thirteen, was then taken in by the Sheltons and received the property as set in a trust. Phil's angry young wife left after a court battle to get the land for her infant daughter and no one has seen the little girl since. Many years pass and now teenage Nora shows up at her uncle's pissed off at everyone for everything. That's when the book opens.

What you have here are a lot of secrets and one very angry young woman. Pete is an artist as well as nature lover and has been spending his time drawing Phil's moth collection. Nora discovers the moths, is furious that Pete has something that belonged to her father and insists on getting them back. Abe feels bad and Pete has to give up the moths. This sets up a lot of anger from Pete but well, boys being boys and girls being girls you kinda know how things are going to eventually end up with these two in spite of that. It's just not an easy road to get there (or stay there for that matter).

Silk Moths is very heavy on the drama and honestly because of that it became more than bit wearisome for me. Nora is a very difficult character to empathize with. She is angry at everyone and always - ALWAYS - takes things the wrong way. Pretty much every conversation she takes part in involves some freaking out. Pete spends most of his time reacting to Nora and/or everyone else's reactions to Nora. And at every turn there is something new for Nora to freak out over as there is constantly something new to be revealed about Phil or what Abe knows about Phil or what Pete's grandparents know about Phil and, well, you get the idea.

We also have someone Abe is crushing on but he can't seem to admit it (thus being the shyest 20 something male ever), a cute little kid who has a crush on Pete and thus hates Nora - and Nora of course has to pile on about it because that is what Nora does and we have Nora's mother who knows where her daughter ran to but doesn't seem to care in the slightest (and when she shows up it is not good) and Nora's stepfather who is a very bad man.

We're talking so much dramarama here that the moths become pretty much window dressing in comparison.

Willey inserts occasional field guide type entries from Phil's high school years to keep the moths in the narrative but to me they just slowed the everything down and didn't really add to the novel. All the action is Nora, Nora, Nora and when she's not in the room (or not the subject of those that are) then the story sags. Phil is only important because he is the source of the modern drama - just who he was in the past doesn't matter much. What any teen girl reading this book (and really, with that cover it will ONLY be teen girls) is going to want is more Nora. Because although I personally thought the drama was way over the top, in channeling my 14 year old self, I'm sure I would be wailing "You are only negative about Nora because you don't understand Nora!!!!".

To be a teenage girl is to be in love with the drama, as we all know.

I wish the book had a tough Nora on the cover - a girl who is sporting jeans and a tank top and looking like she wants to smack the world because that is the girl we meet in this book. I might have tired of her attitude but I know there are plenty of teen readers who won't and I think if they could see her staring back at them then they would be quick to give her a shot.

How do I feel about A Summer of Silk Moths? It's perfectly fine - and perfectly YA, if that makes any sense. Moods change a bit too quick for me and apologies are accepted a bit too easily but that is rather teenagerish as well. Sometimes you have to respect what the audience wants and this is a case of 15 year old girl frustration that many in that age group will consider perfectly appropriate.

[Copy provided by the author.]