Beautiful, lush simile

Anna-Marie McLemore is an accomplished writer of beautiful, lush simile. This novel explores issues of transgender and gender fluidity through the genre of magic realism.
Miel, a five year old girl, appears from a cascade of water one day out of the town's old water tower when it is pulled down. She has roses which grow periodically from wounds on her wrists and the hem of her dress is permanently wet.
The only person who come to her aid is Sam, an enigmatic boy who lives with his mother and makes luminescent models of the moon. They become friends and at high school they become lovers. Sam works at the pumpkin patch of a local family called Bonner. This family have four teenage girls known as the Bonner Sisters who are noted for their beauty, their hair of differing shades of red and their ability to cast spells to capture the hearts of all the boys of the town.
Sam is biologically a girl, Samira, who has been raised as a boy and the Bonner Sisters know this and threaten to expose his secret unless Miel brings them the roses which grow from her wrists which may help restore their fading power.
This is the dilemma of the plot and we learn about Miel's family curse and Sam’s history and why she was raised as a boy. Then there is the town's healer, Aracely, who knows much from her own personal experience.
There is heavy metaphor, hidden meaning, magic, darkness and pain and rich sensory descriptions, although the writing is better than the story.

From the Author’s Note at the end of the book we discover McLemore's experience of her relationship with her transgender husband. Also, the tradition of 'bacha posh ' practiced in parts if Pakistan and Afghanistan where a daughter is dressed and raised as a boy if so needed by the family and then expected to switch and become a woman upon reachingadulthood.

This will no doubt be labelled a transgender novel but please don't overlook this fine piece of descriptive imagery.

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1 person found this helpful

Fairytale like story

The narrators did a good job. The writing is beautiful and lyrical, but it's a book that probably needs you to take the time to dissect the metaphors, which is fine when reading but not a style I enjoyed listening to personally.

This book has heavy themes of identity and gender. I can't speak for the representation of this. I think some of this is somewhat own voices and others parts are not. I'm not sure. this is a book where own voices reveiwers would be valuable.

I thought the story was long winded and focused more on whimsy than plot. If I had liked the characters more I may have enjoyed the book as a whole better, but the fairy tale tone to the book set a distance between me and the story/characters.

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