Words Like Weeds, Book One: Ring Around the Moon

See the family. Daddy is big and strong. See Daddy laugh a big, strong laugh. Laugh, Daddy, laugh. Mommy is very kind. See Mommy cook. Cook, Mommy, cook. See Asher. Asher has black hair and sad gray eyes. Smile, Asher, smile. Asher will not smile.

Asher is a good Christian boy. Asher is nice, smart and very polite. Mommy and Daddy are proud. They love Asher very much. But they do not love gay people. Daddy does not like gay people. Mommy does not like gay people.

Asher hates gay people.

Asher has a dirty little secret.

Asher has a knife in his drawer.

The knife is sharp. The knife cuts well.

See the knife cut.

Cut, knife, cut.

Unlike a lot of iUniverse books, which are often riddled with spelling and grammatical mistakes, Ring Around the Moon doesn't have a single typo in it. Remarkable, considering the author's young age. What's even more remarkable is that the plot goes along smoothly, the descriptions are well-written and poetic, and the characters are realistic. The dialogue is especially great: it sounds like middle school. No character has a lack of "likes" or "dunnos" or "gonnas."

There are just a few problems that I have with this book. First of all, it doesn't count as an entire book. I realize it's the first in a trilogy, but when I finished it I couldn't help but feel that Weinstein should have waited to finish the entire story before publishing this first installment. That could either be a testament to her skill at writing cliffhangers - or a sign of impatience.

Another problem I had with the book was that the prose was too dramatic for the setting. This is a young adult novel, set in modern-day America, but it feels so heavy. Homophobia is a sad topic, but the same heaviness is applied to the clique rivalry in Weinstein's fictional junior high. It felt like too much drama for a relatively light topic. But maybe I just feel that way because I'm out of school now. All the school shootings that have been happening in the last few years probably justify looking at junior high school cliques with more seriousness than past young adult authors have.

That having been said, I did enjoy this book and I look forward to the next two. If you're a teenager, particularly an eighth grader, you'll probably enjoy this more than I did.


WOW...   July 6, 2003
0 out of 2 found this review helpful

OMG if you dont read this book you dont know what your missing!!! i dont usually like reading but i LOVED this & so did my brother! you dont have to be gay to love Asher & understand what the characters are going thru....middle school really is as scary as the author makes it sound. YOU GOTTA READ THIS BOOK!!!!!!!!!


This is just the beginning...   April 9, 2003
Evienne (Maine)
6 out of 6 found this review helpful

There's a new voice in GLBT teen fiction. And when I say "new," I mean NEW. When she first began work on "Ring Around the Moon," the first book in the "Words Like Weeds" trilogy, Anya Weinstein was only a year older than her 13-year-old protagonists. "Words Like Weeds" chronicles two parallel struggles, both of which take place among the teens of Green Haven, an isolated rural town in America's heartland.

One is the struggle of Asher Denmont, the child of homophobic Christian fundamentalist parents, who must overcome both his family's and his own prejudices to come to terms with his budding homosexuality. The other is the story of a long-lived war between middle school cliques which is quickly escalating. Lucas Farlot, an oft picked-on loser, plots revenge on those who have hurt him, even as his girlfriend Kat desperately tries to keep him from acting on his hatred.

16-year-old Weinstein writes with skill and wisdom beyond her years. "Ring Around the Moon," although unable to stand alone as a novel, is an extraordinarily promising start to what is sure to be a dynamite series. Her descriptions of Green Haven and its teen inhabitants bring the story vividly to life. Each character is so complex and multi-faceted that you'd swear they were real people, and their reactions to the differences between them move the story along beautifully. The characters end up buried in questions about prejudice and tolerance, violence and peace.

From a generation mired with depression, drug abuse, sex, and anxiety, a voice cries out in the din, begging for someone to hear, begging for someone to understand. The voice is Anya Weinstein's. The words are heartrendingly honest. The message is one we all must hear. Much like her character Kat Wilder, Weinstein sits somewhat apart from her peers, watching them, hearing their pain. She insightfully captures their struggles, saying for them what they are too distraught to say themselves. Like Kat, Weinstein fully intends to save the world. And like so many that have come before her, she uses language as her weapon against hate. She arms herself with words, screaming to be heard.

The question is: will anybody listen?