Book Review: Moonlight Elk - One Woman’s Hunt for Food and Freedom

Moonlight Elk - One Woman’s Hunt for Food and Freedom by Christie Green is a memoir about her experiences hunting elk, deer, turkey, and quail in New Mexico as a way to complement the food she grows in her garden. However, it quickly becomes much more than a hunting story. Although Moonlight Elk centers around hunting, the core messages are about freedom, change, adaptation, and relationships. Green’s love and respect for the outdoors, animals, and nature shine through her writing style and grab the reader's attention.

Moonlight Elk is broken into five primary sections, based on the moon phases. Within each segment, the chapters focus on specific hunts and experiences during that phase and explore how the different phases affect Green’s life, emotional state, and the animals. This book takes readers on a personal journey from year to year, place to place, through the wilderness and into Green’s daily life as a mom and business owner, deep into her relationships, and brings it back full circle to close the gap.

The book profiles Green’s experience as a new hunter and solo woman in the wild, trying to earn the respect of nature and those around her. The narrative explores stepping outside traditional gender roles, especially in a space often seen as male-dominated. It’s clear that Green does not see herself as a traditional woman in traditional roles. Instead, she is not only on the hunt for food and sustenance, but also to discover more about herself and how she uniquely fits into these roles.

Why Women Hunters Should Read Moonlight Elk

For many women entering hunting—especially later in life or alongside full schedules—Moonlight Elk mirrors a very real internal and external journey.

Many women don’t grow up hunting but come to it through a desire for self-sufficiency, to provide for their families, or to pursue a healthier lifestyle. Green’s experiences reflect an outsider looking in, where she doesn’t yet know the rules and has to depend on the men around her for help. This idea is relatable to so many women because most of them only end up hunting because of a boyfriend or husband. Fortunately, in today’s world, it’s becoming increasingly common for girls to hunt with their dads, so they can begin to gain that knowledge earlier in life and have a lifelong mentor.

A common thread throughout the book is how Green balances hunting with her other responsibilities. Most women hunters aren’t just hunters. They’re also working full-time jobs, managing households and raising a family, and supporting partners or extended family. Green’s experiences show that hunting isn’t always perfectly planned or convenient. It’s done in addition to life’s responsibilities, with limited time in the early mornings before work, short windows between other responsibilities, and in moments you have to fight to carve out. And it’s not written in a way that's negative toward men, or to mean that men don’t also have other responsibilities, but rather that society expects men to be the hunters and women not to be.

The emotional messages Green conveys are also relevant to many women who hunt. The book touches on the emotional weight of providing food, the responsibility of taking a life, and the connection between killing an animal and feeding yourself and your family. It explores how women have always been providers, and hunting is not something women are entering—it’s something they were always part of, but got written out of. However, many women feel they have to prove themselves and often find they are the only women in camp. So they begin to question their abilities and whether they belong.

One of the most relatable themes throughout Moonlight Elk is that hunting doesn’t have to fit a traditional mold. Women often approach it differently than men do. They are more reflective and focus more on the relationship with the land and animals. For many women, hunting is less about competing with others and more about connecting with nature, and more importantly, themselves. Green learns that you don’t have to hunt like anyone else to be a “real” hunter.

“What she sought from these animals was food. What she found was freedom.”

This line perfectly mirrors many real journeys women take when they embark on a hunt. They start for meat, health, and sustainability, but they gain confidence, independence, and a sense of identity outside of their daily roles. That transformation is something many women don’t expect, but recognize once they have been challenged in the woods.

As an outdoorswoman, this book really hit home for me with many of the messages Green conveyed and the situations she found herself in while in the woods. Overall, I enjoyed reading her stories and understood many of the feelings she had. I’ve been in situations where I've relied on a person to guide me through nature, through hunts, and to help direct me on every detail, from walking in before daylight to finding animal sign, sneaking through the woods, taking the shot, and getting an animal off the mountain. And then, having to transition into doing that on my own, and making decisions about every step of the hunt without any guidance. Hunting is an emotional rollercoaster. There are highs and lows of every hunt, and Green does a great job of communicating the joys, sadness, and fears that every hunt involves.

For women who are new to hunting, balancing jobs and/or families, or trying to find their place in the outdoors and hunting realm, this book can feel like a mirror of their struggles at the beginning and their growth. It validates their approach and serves as a reminder that their journey doesn’t have to look traditional.

Moonlight Elk is available in hardback, paperback, e-book, and audiobook formats; prices vary by format. Available on Amazon and other book retailers.    

Sarah Honadel is an avid outdoorswoman from Kentucky and now lives in southeast Idaho. She enjoys hunting elk, deer, turkey, pronghorn, and waterfowl. She is the Social Media Specialist with Huntress View and a member of the Browning Trail Cameras Pro Staff. Follow her outdoor adventures on Instagram @sarah.honadel.outdoors and TikTok.