Jenn Bennett is very quickly becoming one of my favourite contemporary authors! Birdie was such a lovable character, (and a fitting 21st century Nora Charles!) But each character shone under their own spotlight, making them vivid, interesting people I wanted to know more about.

Enough blathering, let’s talk about what I loved:

The Vintage References
It was so refreshing to read a YA book that contained so many references to books and movies from the 1920’s - 1950’s! The author’s love for vintage eras poured through the pages. Some references were obvious, some were there for the die hard geeklings among us (“Wuv, twue wuv”)

The Relationship
Having read Alex Approximately last year, the first thing that stood out to me as being different to other contemporary books, is that Bennett shows characters ‘in’ relationships, not just skirting the edges of them. Most authors finish a story once the guy and girl get together, but Bennett shows how hard relationships can be. There’s awkwardness and arguments and head games you can play with yourself, but Bennett masterfully projects the truth into her stories: If you want the relationship to work, you gotta work for the relationship. Birdie and Daniel were a perfect example of a couple who fought past their insecurities to get that bond with each other.

Nick and Nora Charles
The first reference to The Thin Man had me squealing, so you can imagine my full blown fangirl screaming when the characters started referring to each other as Nick and Nora! Thank you, Jenn, for making my little heart so happy and for introducing a new generation to the world’s greatest detectives!

My thanks to NetGalley and Simon and Schuster for giving me a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Sadly I think I am the wrong age to read and enjoy this book. It felt too teenage for me.
But I admire the fact that it dealt with some quite serious problems, mental health, disability and even narcolepsy.
Thank you NetGalley for a review copy.

Jenn Bennett is a must-read author and always will be and Serious Moonlight has all the charm, swoons and heartache I come to expect from her. Serious Moonlight was a clever and loose retelling of Sleepless in Seattle and I love how she works in little nods to vintage pop culture. Her characters never fail to charm and her sex positive approach is always tactful and deftly written. I gobbled this up on a day and eagerly await an announcement for her next book.

Jenn Bennett has been on of my favorite contemporary writers. Her books are either a hit or a miss of me. But the ones i do love are like biiiiiiiiiig hits. So this one brings the count to 2 loved and added to all time fav... 2 are just tolerable, in the middle. This one fell in the latter category.

One of the things I love about Jenn B's books are that they are so darn atmospheric and they build up the environment around the story so much, that's one of the things I love about night owls. And this one was no different. I loved show she portrayed Seattle, the water front, the city and the houses. The night time scenes, the ferry rides, the diner. It just add so much to the story, and makes it so much more fun for me. So yeah it gets a lot of points for that.

The story had Nancy Drew-esque sleuth-y vibes to it. Centered around a mystery and a girl who loves playing detective, added another atmospheric charm to the story; filled with suspense and intrigue.

Birdie was a flawed character and something really hard to agree with. But she loved books (ding ding) and was so awkward (again ding ding). Love these two facts, she is struggling through out the story and I love that her arc progresses and she does deal with her life and issues in a positive way so yay her!

This book is incredibly diverse and deal with mental health and disabled people issue. And that was done really well. Also its sex positive and deal with it in a normal way. And I like how it's spoken about in Jenn's books, and talked about other than being treated like a taboo.

My problems came with the pacing. Sometimes it got a little too slow and boring. I can't decide if it was the book or the fact that publishers decide to provide PDF earc that makes the process 100% excruciating, because PDF are so rigid in their formats and they don't adhere to any of my read apps on the phone or my laptop. Ugh. But I think the books does become too long at some point for a contemporary, it's 400+ pages longs and takes a while to build up and the pace goes up and down a lot.

Also sadly I didn't feel the romance at all too.

But all in all it was an enjoyable read for me. The mystery, sleuthing, world building, food talk, quirky characters and cats kept me going.