The Moon Dwellers is a post-apocalyptic story in which destruction on Earth led people to dig caverns underground in order to rebuild society under the surface. This led to the creation of the Tri-Realms, which consist of the rich and powerful Sun Dwellers, the middle class Moon Dwellers, and the poor and destitute Star Dwellers. Adele is a 17-year-old Moon Dweller whose parents were convicted of being traitors. She is sentenced to life in prison, where she makes friends with two fellow prisoners who decide to help her escape. Tristan is the son of the corrupt President, yet he does not share his father’s views on how the Tri-Realms should be ruled. On a visit to the Moon Realm, he passes by the prison that Adele is in and they both feel pain when they meet eyes. Tristan decides to run away from home to find Adele so that he can get some answers about why he feels this way when he is close to her, but ends up becoming involved in something bigger than he could’ve imagined.
This book had the potential to be really great, but I was honestly really disappointed. I am a huge fan of post-apocalyptic novels and a book about an entire society created underground definitely peaked my interest. My main problem with this book was the characters. There was a serious lack of character development throughout the book and the characters were very one dimensional. The dialogue was super corny also, which made it almost painful to read. Another big problem I had was the way the story switched back and forth between Adele and Tristan’s perspective. I’m not a huge fan of this type of narrative to begin with but what made this worse was the fact that every time the narrative switched, it repeated half of the previous chapter from the other person’s point of view. So basically it seemed like I was rereading the same scenes over which got really annoying after awhile.
On the other hand, the world built in The Moon Dwellers was fascinating and I really enjoyed reading about the life that had been built for these people underground. Once people moved down to the Tri-Realms, the government became corrupt and turned into more of a dictatorship in which the rich Sun Dwellers had everything they could ever want but the Moon and Star Dwellers were barely surviving. Of course, this sparked the Star Dwellers to rebel, which causes both Adele and Tristan to reconsider their own plans.
This story just got really dragged out after awhile. After pages of Tristan trying to find Adele and always just missing her, I was looking forward to a really fantastic scene in which they finally meet but it ended up being pretty anti-climactic. The romance fell extremely flat and while I assume it will progress and develop through the next two novels I honestly have no desire to read either.
Overall, The Moon Dwellers had a really interesting plot and a lot of potential to be a great post-apocalyptic novel but unfortunately, was disappointing and lacked any real substance.
I received a free copy of the ebook from the author for an honest review. The Moon Dwellers was released June 30, 2012 and is the first book in The Dwellers trilogy. The other two books in the trilogy, The Star Dwellers and The Sun Dwellers, are both available now.
Young At Heart 