Rating: 
Summary: Second favorite...
Review: It's no Where the Heart Is, but this offering from Billie Letts was an enjoyable read, and I knocked it out in three days. Shoot the Moon is set in the small town of DeClare, OK, where everybody seems to know everyone else's business. As always, Letts brings us a quirky supporting cast (all with too-crazy names, but please don't think everyone in this state is named Caney or Kippy or Teeve) that surrounds a long-ago suspicious murder of a teenage mom, Gaylene Harjo and the disappearance of her infant son, Nicky Jack. While a local man was accused by crooked lawman O Boy Daniels, the story was full of holes, and no one fully believed he was responsible. When Beverly Hills veterinarian Mark Albright comes to DeClare searching for his birth mother, he discovers he is the presumed-dead Nicky Jack, and sets out to discover the circumstances and the truth surrounding her murder. Letts tells us an interesting story, and keeps the reader guessing to the last. Her character development is rich, and though the romance that develops among the characters is a little unbelievable, they are likeable enough. I would recommend this read to anyone wanting to have a little fun!
Rating: 
Summary: Good...but not great
Review: Others have said it before: We all waited a long time for a new Billie Letts book but this just disappointed me. Her first two were so incredibly well-written with such colorful characters and great endings. This just seemed to fall short. I did enjoy reading this and in true Letts fashion, the ending didn't leave you saying "what the..."? It brought everything together leaving you with a smile.
Rating:
Summary: Letts keeps her reputation as a writer
Review: Shoot the moon, so Billie Letts tells us, is a dominos term. It means to go for every point available in the game.
Shoot the Moon is in many way like her previous two books, Home is Where the Heart is, and The Honk and Holler Opening Soon. All of her books take place in eastern Oklahoma, all three have main characters who are a bit down on their luck at the beginning of the book, but by the end of the novel find their purpose in life (with the help of a new romance), even though their circurmstances only change a little. All three have lovable secondary characters who support the main characters and help them find their way towards the end of their delemma.
But Shoot the Moon has a new element added: mystery. Thirty years ago, Gaylene Harjo was murdered and her infant son, Nicky Jack Harjo disappeared. Now Nicky Jack has reappeared, all grown up, and he has to find the answers to several questions. Who murdered his mother? Who was the woman who claimed to be Gaylene Harjo who took him out to California and put him up for adoption? Who, even, was his father?
Its a thrill ride watching Mark (as his adoptive parents renamed him) hunt down the answers to the these questions, find a convienent romance, and hide out from the press, who have discovered that he is back in town. Interlaced with selections from Gaylene Harjo's diary, the story behind the mystery slowly colases together and it ends satisfyingly, with the reader finally understanding what went on in 1972, when the whole mess began.
The prologue is a bit difficult to get through, as Letts summerizes thirty years in nine pages, but hang on, its definitely worth it.
Shoot the Moon gets an A.
Rating:
Summary: Good Characterizations From a Favorite Author
Review: This book was quite different from Billie Letts previous novels. On the surface was a mystery about a man who finds out he was adopted many years before and goes looking for his birth parents. This quest leads him to a town in Oklahoma with interesting and quirky characters, a hallmark of Billie Letts previous books. But if this was the surface the book really delves into how an act years before affects people years later and how these same people can help others to become whole again and allow them to take new chances in life. Although I thought I was disappointed while I was reading this book, by the end I did realize how much I enjoyed many of the characters which included Teeve Harjo, the owner of the local pool hall, Kyle Leander, a man with a difficult past which included drugs and emotional breakdowns, Kippy, a man with Downs Syndrome who loves to fish, Ivy Harjo, a pregnant woman who is accustomed to roaming the country, never willing to settle down but most of all Nicky Harjo, who is looking for his parents but finds families come in all sorts of packages. I do advise you if you're going to read this book and have read Where the Heart Is and The Honk and Holler Opening Soon, to approach this book with an open mind. While it isn't exactly the same as Letts' other books, there is enough here to keep any reader interested and in some parts the reason I loved her first two books also comes shining through in this one too.
Rating B+
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