Title: Moon of the Turning Leaves (Moon #2)

Author: Waubgeshig Rice

Release date: October 10th, 2023

After reading and loving ‘Moon of the Crusted Snow,’ I knew I’d need to read the second book in Waubgeshig Rice’s Moon series. I’m going to do my best to be spoiler free for book one, but be warned that going forward, there may be some inadvertent slips.

The two books in this series can essentially be split into PRE/DURING and POST event, though there’s a solid argument to be made that Book One is more DURING than PRE. I’m saying PRE because we get some scenes prior to all the lights going out, whereas often is the case in dystopian/apocalyptic narratives, the ‘big event’ occurs essentially right at the start of the book.

If you’ve read book one, you’ll know it follows Evan Whitesky and his family and community as they navigate a life where they’re suddenly cut off from the outside world. The powers out, cell phones are dead and the trucks that normally deliver supplies are not coming.

There’s some fascinating inter-personal dynamics on display in that one and ultimately the book fills with an ending that suggest there’s hope for the future.

If Rice had ended it there and not returned, nobody would’ve blamed him and it would’ve stood on its own wonderfully.

With Book Two, Rice decided to return to that world, twelve years later and in doing so, managed to deliver a solid one-two of modern classics that in essence gave us an Indigenous version of McCarthy’s ‘The Road.’

What I liked: Twelve years after the lights have gone out, the Anishinaabe people have forged a life for themselves north of their former community. But, now, after a decade, food sources are starting to dwindle and the decision is made for a group to walk south and see if they can find somewhere to resettle. They ancestors have spoke of an island, but they’re leery to investigate, worried about how things are in the new world they’ve not been a part of for many years.

What Rice has done here is truly fascinating. We get Evan, his daughter, and others, who work their way back down to where towns used to be, worried about hostiles. This is their land, where they were from, but its been reclaimed by the earth, and in areas by hostile inhabitants. Sure, throughout, we see some of the familiar plot points of new characters arriving and should they trust them, but its done through a fascinating lens of racial undertones and sociopolitical aspects. Even a decade after the modern world has ended, the white people they encounter still operate with an air of ownership to everything – to the land, to the Indigenous people and to anything anyone else possesses. It’s that classic evilness of greed, power and status that we often encounter with older, white males with money. And we currently see that happening – unfortunately – with the return of the President in the US.

As the story progresses, Waub does a great job of showing how the members connect with where they are and the descriptions of those areas and those moments are the most powerful parts, up until the perhaps one of the most emotional moments I’ve ever read, which is the culmination of Evan and his daughters story. I won’t go far into it, spoilers and such, but what Rice put on page there is something so remarkable, that even writing about it now is making me emotional.

The epilogue does open the door for a third entry, though again, if Rice leaves it here, he’ll have ended this series on a high point and offering those still living in the new world the hope of a brighter future.

What I didn’t like: I found this book perfect, but, as I usually do in this section, I try to point out what some other readers may not connect with, if I myself didn’t experience any of that. So, for this one, don’t come into this expecting a fast-paced, edge-of-your-seat thriller. This one takes its time having our characters move from point A to point B and the book is all the better because of that.

Why you should buy this: ‘Moon of the Turning Leaves’ is one of those rare sequels that does exactly what you want with a sequel – makes book one that much better. It manages to take what was started in ‘Moon of the Crusted Snow’ and elevate the events in there so that when combined with the struggles within the second book, makes the reader connect that much more with the characters and what they’re going through. I loved book one and after finishing book two, love them both so much when combined as a whole and when taken as singular reads.

These are must reads, especially if you’re Canadian, but beyond that, these are the rare books that connect you with a group of people you want to root for so badly and make you stay for the entirety of their journey.

Amazing.