Customer Reviews

Last Moon Dancing: A Memoir of Love And Real Life in Africa

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Once I started reading Last Moon Dancing I could not put it down. I felt all emotions from desperate to amused but the most dominate thing I felt was pride. I am proud that young people have the courage and ambition to commite themselves to the aid and education of those with less. It is an awe inspiring story and one that is so fantastic it couldn't be anything but admired

I loved Monique Schmidt's memoir. Her honest,straight-forward account of her years in the Peace Corps in Africa is brutal, beautiful and witty. Woven through her African experience are connections to her childhood and early adulthood, but not always in the usual prose format. There may be a poem or an anecdote. Some of the revelations will anger the reader; some will shock, but throughout, you know Schmidt's telling it exactly as she sees and experiences life.

I just finished reading this book and was touched by Monique Schmidt's brutal honesty and self-evaluation. Schmidt bares her innermost thoughts to the reader. I found myself laughing out loud and, at times, crying. A very touching book about life, love and her Peace Corps experiences!

I highly recommend Last Moon Dancing, a memoir of a Peace Corps Volunteer's experience in Africa, by Monique Maria Schmidt. Schmidt's plan was to teach, sacrifice and contribute to an African village. She soon realizes, however, that she has brought more to Africa than planned. Woven into her journey are the memories of her own childhood on a farm in a Mennonite community in South Dakota. Schmidt humorously tries to make sense of it all and soon realizes she is surrounded by love. Schmidt's writing style is engaging and ranges from poetic & profound to blunt & to the point.

I thoroughly enjoyed reading "Last Moon Dancing." The author's candid descriptions about her experiences in an African village while serving in the Peace Corps keep this book interesting and fresh. I enjoyed the "Dear Angela" letters the most. My favorite letter was "Dear Angela, If you want to know what kind of day I've had, smell me." Schmidt's ability to find humor in the day-to-day stress of her African experience makes one marvel at the strength and tenacity of the human spirit. A definite Must-Read!!

While Last Moon Dancing contained some very promising elements, I felt that Ms. Schmidt never really explored them to the full depth of their potential for story making. She scratched the narrative surface stuffing in stories that could be separated out into two or three memoirs. I would have liked to see her develop the parallels of her own search for love with her exploration and increasing understanding of her parents relationship. If she had used her own experience of rape, only glossed over in the actual story, to examine the issues of sexual and domestic violence she witnessed in her village while struggling against the expectations of two different cultures it could have been a powerful experience of discovery for both the author and the reader. Her use of literary device, including inserting poetry, letter excerpts and lesson plans, as well as the chapter titles distracted from the overall arc of the plot. Done with some consistency to the story line they could of enhanced the readers experience. I did not believe her relationship with Charles. It lacked emotional depth and properly slanted detail to engage readers and invest them in the relationship along side the author.
I picked up the book with great anticipation but i closed it confused and disappointed. This book felt like i was reading her first draft. If the author had given more attention to detail, given the characters more depth so that I become more emotionally invested in their lives as a reader and spent less time on introspection but more time digging at her reflections to gain some insight it would have made the book much more powerful. I am also disappointed at the subtitle. I could understand it if it read "A Memoir of Real Life In Africa" but throw in the love part and I am left feeling as if the title is misleading. Does it refer to her parent's love which she spent paragraphs exploring, or did it refer to her brief, tepid affair with Charles? Her close affection with Beaker and Afi or something else altogether? I picked it up thinking that she would find great love, as i know there are many great Peace Corps loves stories to tell. I still really want to love this story, but i am left with the overwhelming need to sit down and give it a good edit.

Last Moon Dancing is the account of Ms. Monique Maria Schmidt's experiences living as a Peace Corps volunteer providing readers with a glimpse of her two years in West Africa.

It is so beautifully written it makes you feel the experience of Africa and even brings the smell right to you. It makes the reader see and feel as if they were experiencing it in a hollow deck onboard Voyager. When you think you know the rest of the story, it changes direction and shape like a river.

Ms. Schmidt uses the words, poems, and her writing skills as Beethoven used music to create a masterpiece. She is simple in her writing and yet so complex such that it makes the event as if you were experiencing it yourself.

She talks about everyday life in Africa, their challenges, their stories, in ways both blunt and colorful, she seems to know how to use the exact sentences so that the reader is able to see the beautiful people and the extraordinary culture that lives there.
This is a must read book!!!
Alexander Deyhim
Ithaca, NY
6/15/2009