Moth Diaries by Rachel Klein
Bantam Trade Paperback 2003
Creepy fun. I picked this book up because on the cover the Kirkus Review says it’s “A chilling debut, in the best gothic style...” and it is.
Written as the diary of a young girl at boarding school, “The Moth Diaries” describes her life, friendships, teachers and what happens to all of them when a strange new student enters the picture. On one level it is the story of adolescence. The protagonist talks about her best friend, Lucy, and their increasingly estranged relationship, about other girls and their quirky sometimes dangerous behavior, and about her parents, a poet father dead by suicide and a mother still coming to terms with grief.
On the other hand, it is a departure into gothic superstition. Through some creepy discoveries, the protagonist comes to believe the new girl, Ernessa, is in some sense a vampire. Her best friend Lucy first becomes distant then descends into a strange illness. Another girl dies after, perhaps, getting too close to Ernessa’s secret. There is a gruesome killing of a teacher’s pet. Add to this the strange everyday things about Ernessa like not eating and a smelly room, and the protagonist creates a fairly good case for her vampire hunting crusade.
However, when introduced to the handsome young English teacher’s reading requirement, “Dracula”, and taking into account the already fragile and unbalanced nature of an adolescent girl’s mind, the reader is never quite sure.
A good beach read - i.e. in the daylight, with lots of people around, and warm sunny weather.
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