Top 10 List

Here is a list of the top ten things in the book The Slow Moon in no particular order.

1) Sophie: Sophie is the main character and has a lot of significance in this story. Sophie had just moved to Tennessee and she made friends with a few people and started to date Crow. At a party, Crow had left Sophie in the woods to go get something in his car and when he got back, Sophie had been beaten and raped. Not until the end of the book, do you find out that it was three of Crow’s closest and best friends. Through the whole book, Sophie struggles with trusting people and trying to remember who had done that to her.

2) Lying: Lying is a main theme in this book for many reasons. Bobby lies to his mom about what happened to Sophie, along with Tom and Casey. Sophie lies to her mom, Rita, and everyone else when she tells them that she didn’t remember who did that to her. Carl lies to his wife Helen, because he cheated on her all the time with her sister Ava. Bobby’s mom tells Bobby that his father was dead when she was just divorced to him because he was in jail for a long time.


3) Sophie getting raped: This is a significant part in the book because it is basically what the whole plot is based off of. It happens at the beginning of the story and you find out that Bobby, Tom, and Casey were the three who did it. But the whole book is pretty much about how everyone was affected by it and such.

4)Acquitted: This vocabulary word means to declare not guilty. The book used this word many times after the jury said Crow would be acquitted to hurting Sophie. This word was used at least 5 to 10 times in this story, but since it was used so many times I now know what it means.

5)Crow: Crow is another main character in this book, because he was Sophie’s boyfriend. Crow was the one that left Sophie in the woods on that night that she got hurt. After that happened, Sophie wouldn’t talk to Crow, they talked one other time during the book until the end of the story. At the end of the story they hung out and ended up getting back together because they thought it felt right.

6)When Sophie stays at Grace’s: A key part in this book is when Sophie decides to go back to her hometown where her best friend Grace lives. When Sophie is there, she had a lot of time to be by herself and paint and try to figure out who had hurt her. And right when Sophie came home, she was able to tell her mom who it was. Sophie needed that vacation to get away and think about what had happened in the past months.

7)Remorse: This vocabulary word means deep and painful regret for wrongdoing; compunction. This word is used very frequently in this story. This is mainly because most people feel this way in the book. Bobby, Tom, and Casey all feel remorse; especially toward the end of the book. If I had to sum up all the characters in this book with one word, it would be remorse. Everyone feels this one way or another in this story.

8)Bobby: Bobby is one of the main characters in this story. Bobby changes a lot throughout this book. When we first hear of him, he is shy and he really likes Sophie. But once he starts to cling to her, she tells him she doesn’t like him that way. Bobby also finds out that his father is alive (when he thought he was dead all those years). And once Sophie realizes that Bobby was apart of the rape, Bobby is a very quiet person again and has a lot of remorse.

9)Loyalty: There are many examples of loyalty, or lack of it, in this story. Bobby, Tom, and Casey are very un-loyal to Crow, because they hurt Sophie and they made Crow take the blame for it. It was like they weren’t even friends anymore. Lester and Grace are very loyal to Sophie because they treated and saw her the same and helped her after she got beaten and raped. Sophie realized that they were her true friends and she knew she could trust them.

10)Jail: Jail is a motif in this story, because there are four people to connect it to. Charlie Post (Sophie’s mom’s boyfriend) works at the hardware store but also works at the jail to visit with the people there. Bobby’s father was in jail for over 10 years and now that he’s out he wants to tell Bobby he is really alive. Crow has to go to jail for a week before he is acquitted. Bobby, Tom, and Casey all have to go to jail for committing the crime on Sophie.