Outrun the Moon

by Stacey Lee

From the author of the critically acclaimed Under a Painted Sky, an unforgettable story of determination set against a backdrop of devastating tragedy. Perfect for fans of Code Name Verity.

Winner of the PEN Center USA Literary Award for Young Adult
Winner of the Asian/Pacific American Award for Literature
 
San Francisco, 1906: Fifteen-year-old Mercy Wong is determined to break from the poverty of Chinatown, and an education at St. Clare’s School for Girls is her best hope. Although St. Clare’s is off-limits to all but the wealthiest white girls, Mercy gains admittance through a mix of cunning and a little bribery, only to discover that getting in was the easiest part. Not to be undone by a bunch of spoiled heiresses, Mercy stands strong—until disaster strikes.

On April 18, a historic earthquake rocks San Francisco, destroying Mercy’s home and school. Now she’s forced to wait with her classmates for their families in a temporary park encampment. Though fires might rage, and the city may be in shambles, Mercy can’t sit by while they wait for the army to bring help—she still has the “bossy” cheeks that mark her as someone who gets things done. But what can one teenage girl do to heal so many suffering in her broken city?

Stacey Lee masterfully crafts another remarkable novel set against a unique historical backdrop. Strong-willed Mercy Wong leads a cast of diverse characters in this extraordinary tale of survival.

• ISBN10: 0399175415
• ISBN13: 9780399175411
• Publish Date: 24 May 2016
• Publish Status: Remaindered
• Publish Country: US
• Publisher: Penguin Putnam Inc
• Imprint: G.P.Putnam's Sons Books for Young Readers'
• Format: Hardcover
• Pages: 400
• Language: English
• URL: https://penguinrandomhouse.com/books/isbn/9780399175411

Reviews

[Bianca]

I’m struck by the impermanence of it all. You expect certain things to always be there, like the bakery on the corner, or the boy you grew up with. But when the very ground can eat you alive without warning, what’s to say the ocean won’t dry up? Or the stars won’t suddenly shut off? Nothing is forever.

— Loved the diversity, the cultural aspects and the smart/empowering heroine, but I was bored reading most of the time to be honest. It was just too dull for my taste.

[Heather]

I started reading this book without really knowing what it was about.  I may be one of the few people who enjoyed the story of Mercy's time at school more than I liked the story after the earthquake.

This book is split into two sections by the earthquake.  Before, Mercy is dealing with discrimination because of her sex, race, and class.  She is a Chinese girl who has finished the limited amount of schooling available to her.  She wants to be able to go to high school.  She has a plan to win a scholarship to an elite private school.  But once there she is disappointed to find it more interested in turning out proper young ladies than in the ladies increasing their knowledge.  She is also put directly into a world of wealth that she has never known before. 

The author does a great job of working in history lessons about treatment of Chinese people in California at the time.  She discusses the exclusion laws that prevented people from coming from China.  She talks about discriminatory housing laws that kept the Chinese population penned into a small area of the city. 

I was really into this book when the earthquake occurs.  Most of the girls at the school are boarding there from out of town so when the school is destroyed they have nowhere to go.  They end up living in a tent city set up in a park.  From here the book is a story of looting and cooking huge meals to try to feed everyone living in the park.  There was limited disaster aid at the time.  What help was available was out fighting the fires caused by the earthquake so survivors were mostly on their own. 

The author notes that group cooking situations like the one in the book were set up in the aftermath of the earthquake.  I'm glad she added that because I wouldn't have believed it otherwise.  It seemed a little too feel-good for everything that was going on before.  I understand that the point was the discrimination can't survive if everyone needs to work together when they have lost everything.  But it seemed a little too easy in the book.  No one seemed to really be grappling with the issues of loss and grief.  Maybe they were supposed to be numb and just focusing on survival. 

I'd recommend this book for a great look into life in 1906 San Francisco. 

 This review was originally posted on Based On A True Story

[girlinthepages]

You guys this was my first Stacey Lee book and it was SO GOOD. I was lucky enough to attend the launch party for Outrun the Moon, and I loved the mini-presentation Stacey gave on the historical background of San Francisco. It was the perfect context to have when I started this book and Stacey's writing did not disappoint. I was truly transported back to turn of the century San Francisco, and it was a thrill to read about neighborhoods that I've walked through and learn of their culture and residences over a hundred years ago. Mercy was such a great main character, and I loved the juxtaposition of her family's Chinese heritage and beliefs and her time spent at St. Clare's School and its decidedly Western perspective. When the earthquake hits and thousands of people are displaced from their homes, it was interesting to see so many different cultures and people from different backgrounds have to come together, as the earthquake was a great equalizer for many, at least in the immediate aftermath. Also, this book is truly a testament to girl power, with Mercy and her unlikely circle of friends all having very different strengths but the common traits of resilience and kindness in common.

Overall: Outrun the Moon is a fantastic book, with a ton of diversity and a very well researched historical setting. Even if you're not traditionally a fan of historical fiction, I think Lee's writing is engaging enough to captivate you and make you relate and empathize with the humanity of the characters. I encourage everyone to read this book!This review was originally posted on Girl in the Pages

[Angie]

Friendship! Earthquakes! And a magical cow! Oh my! Okay, so maybe the cow wasn't magical, but Outrun the Moon was certainly a delightful read! I loved Mercy Wong from the very first chapter with her floating away in wayward hot air balloon. She a 15 year old girl with ambitions. She grew up in Chinatown and her education ended after 8th grade, so she's determined to get into the St. Clare's School for Girls (on scholarship, of course!) and then start her own business to take care of her family. I would say "easier said than done," but Mercy has a way about her.

Outrun the Moon has so many great things about it! Mercy is just a wonderful narrator. She tells things like it is and doesn't sugarcoat. If she sees racism, she points it out. If she sees someone being kind to their fellow human, she points it out. Although she her attempts at acting like a Chinese heiress are cringeworthy and hilarious. There's also friendship! Despite the odds, Mercy makes friends with her classmates and even gets the Headmistress to warm up to her. Earthquake and fires! This was an amazing time in history, and I loved seeing it from this angle of people from different backgrounds coming together in order to survive and thrive. And the magical cow, obviously.

Outrun the Moon also made me laugh several times and cry once. There are so many amazing oneliners that had me smiling or cracking up. And none of them felt forced. Mercy is just funny and awesome. The crying wasn't for anything sad, even though there are sad parts. I cried from happiness of friendship! I do that sometimes. I couldn't help it. It was just so cute. So yes, a book about a super destructive incident is very happy-making.

You must read Outrun the Moon if you like bold heroines, friendship, the healing power of food, San Francisco, and magical cows!

Read more of my reviews at Pinkindle Reads & Reviews.

[layawaydragon]

I was dying to get my hands on Outrun the Moon as soon as I heard about it. I was on a quest and entered every giveaway I could find. While I'm not lucky enough to have a copy grace my broke-ass's shelf, my hold from the library came through.

I broke my rule about following review copies with deadlines. I skipped ahead to Outrun the Moon. In my defense, it would've been unfair since I'd be thinking about this book while trying to just get the others done already!

I don't know where to start. I don't know how to start. It's fucking FLAWLESS.

Hell, I feel inadequate trying to write this review.

There is absolutely nothing bad to say. Nothing. No minor complaints or nit-picks or pet-peeves. It's all fucking amazing: characters, setting, plot, writing. You name it, Outrun the Moon does it perfectly.

I'm trying not to fangirl everywhere and make it a gif review. It's hard because Outrun the Moon is so fucking good you guys.

It's about friendships and bigotry, opportunity and oppression and community and segregation wrapped in such lovely writing, profound messages and lessons that causes ALL the feels.

The characters are so well done. Mercy and her classmates grew, had depth and impacted the story greatly. They're all real people and dynamic. Their gender and race effects who they are and how they act. Even with the larger cast, they’re all distinct. I never had a problem keeping track. I don’t even really want to call them background characters because they were so good and important.

There's a bit of romance but 1.) it doesn't overwhelm or take focus, 2.) They’re actually friends and act like it, 3.) They were actually compatible, 4.) They did what was best for them even if it meant being apart and they were happy for each other. That's so mature and dammit, I know there are teens who do this that don't get representation and those who need to see this kind of love.

Even after all that rambling, I don't think ya'll understand how much I LOVE this book. I have notes and highlights several times during almost every chapter and beyond to the Author's Note, Author's Second Note and Acknowledgements. Her list of people that helped and gave her the "stamp of approval" for what she wrote, how she portrayed the people and time...Stacy Lee is fucking phenomenal.



It makes me want to cry, both in gratitude and wonder. I don't cry a lot and when I do it's usually from being overwhelmed or a panic attack but this? There were tears. When I thought it was safe, more came.

Her Acknowledgements being with this quote from Jean Massieu, a pioneer deaf educator: "Gratitude is the memory of the heart." [Cool note: It's become a proverb in France.]

Thank you, Stacey Lee for writing this. For all of your time and research and skills. It's been weeks trying to write this review and I'm still struggling for words and tearing up just thinking about it.

Stacey Lee is a must read author. I can’t wait to get read her previous book, Under a Painted Sky and her next book, Secret of a Heart Note, coming out this December(!!).

Did you know?

"In 1879, California adopted a new Constitution, which explicitly authorized the state government to determine which individuals were allowed to reside in the state, and banned the Chinese from employment by corporations and state, county or municipal governments."

"Many people strongly supported the Chinese Exclusion Act, including the Knights of Labor, a labor union, who supported it because it believed that industrialists were using Chinese workers as a wedge to keep wages low. Among labor and leftist organizations, the Industrial Workers of the World were the sole exception to this pattern. The IWW openly opposed the Chinese Exclusion Act from its inception in 1905.

Read more about the Chinese Exclusion Act, the first law implemented to prevent a specific ethnic group from immigrating to the United States.

After records burned in the 1906 San Francisco Earthquake many immigrants (known as "paper sons") claimed that they had familial ties to resident Chinese-American citizens.
~Wiki

Here's a moving article from Steve Kwok via Immigrant Voices, My Father Was a Paper Son

A Sampling



I wasn’t joking about all the notes, highlights, and bookmarks I made earlier. While I can’t share them all, and some you need context/spoilers, I’ve done the hard work of picking ones I can share. They’re only in chronological order, not ranked.

First:

"Hard work wasn't enough to get rich, or else we'd already be living in a mansion on Nob Hill with cut-glass windows like those of Leland Stanford or Mark Hopkins. No, the key to wealth was opportunity. And if opportunity didn't come knocking, then Mrs. Lowry says you must build own door."

~ Chapter 3, pg. 8.

Second:

"It strikes me that I could be back in my tenement courtyard listening to the women gossip over the community soup. Same pot, different stirrers."

~Chapter 10 pg. 8.

Third:

" 'Joi-gin,' I whisper. May he hear out Cantonese word for good-by, which means 'see you again.' He may never be my partner in business or in life, but I hope his boat will return one day. "

~ Chapter 15, pg. 2.

Fourth:

"The poor man, whose intentions were so quickly imagined for him because of the way the light hits his skin. My heart bleeds for that man. Isn't that why I had to con my way into St. Clare's? Even if I did climb to the top of that mountain one day, people will never stop seeing my color first, before me."

~Chapter 26 pg. 11.

Fifth:

"The vanishing sun lights the sky a strange yellow purple, half day in the west and half night in the east. It amazes me that even when the world is going to hell in a handcart, there's still beauty in the fringes."

~Chapter 27, pg 11.

Sixth:

"My life has changed. There is no going back. There is only holding on to this present, whose shape is as hard to define as a cloud."

~Chapter 27, pg 14.

Seventh:

"[Mrs. Lowry] Our success is determined not by external forces, but how we react to them. And didn't Ma always tell her more hapless clients that you can't prevent the birds of misfortune from flying over your head, but you can prevent them from making nests in your hair?"

~Chapter 27, pg 14.

Eighth:

"Some parents bring their children up and, I suppose, others let them down. At least we can choose our friends."

~Chapter 35, pg. 4.

Ninth:

'For every rule, there is a rule breaker.' Her gaze flits to me. 'And a ruler breaker.'

-Chapter 38, pg 11.

Tenth:

"A part of me understands the need to keep order, but another part worries that we are being led to fear the wrong things.

It's just like Chinatown and all the laws passed to contain us. We were never the enemy. The enemy was our country's own fear. "

~Chapter 42, pg. 4.

Bonus! From the Author's Second Note:

However, history is a general overview, and overlooks the story, the possibility of the individual. If we are confined by the strict margins of what is "known" to be true, we would never explore the power of what could be true. We would deny our ability to create our own stories, to make our own magic. And what is life, without that?"

Have you read Outrun the Moon yet? If not, will you? Which quote is your favorite?