Ratings5
Average rating4.3
"An unforgettable story of trauma and healing, told in achingly beautiful prose with great tenderness and care." —#1 New York Times-bestselling author Karen M. McManus When two teens discover that they were both sexually assaulted at the same party, they develop a cautious friendship through her family’s possibly-magical pastelería, his secret forest of otherworldly trees, and the swallows returning to their hometown, in Anna-Marie McLemore's The Mirror Season... Graciela Cristales’ whole world changes after she and a boy she barely knows are assaulted at the same party. She loses her gift for making enchanted pan dulce. Neighborhood trees vanish overnight, while mirrored glass appears, bringing reckless magic with it. And Ciela is haunted by what happened to her, and what happened to the boy whose name she never learned. But when the boy, Lock, shows up at Ciela’s school, he has no memory of that night, and no clue that a single piece of mirrored glass is taking his life apart. Ciela decides to help him, which means hiding the truth about that night. Because Ciela knows who assaulted her, and him. And she knows that her survival, and his, depend on no one finding out what really happened.
Reviews with the most likes.
An all-too beautiful book with beautiful representation and tragic albeit important themes with sexuality, sexual assault, and more. Absolutely adored the pansexual representation and how McLemore portrays the erasure so many experience (of which I can relate to!). If there's anytime where basing a book off its cover was right, this time is it, because I can't explain how, but the tone and vibe of this novel is wonderfully encapsulated by the cover. My last read of April, and I'll say! - I am ending on a good note. Onward to May.
The writing is gorgeous. Took me a very long time to get through, simply because the subject matter (sexual assault) and the style (magical realism) both require me to be in a certain mood to read and that mood is elusive. So I can't say that I loved it, but I can say that I think it is an important book that will resonate with its readers. And again, the writing is beautiful.
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