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madmantha's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
I’ve now reread it multiple times and enjoy it more and more each reading. It’s such a poetic and circular story.
Graphic: Body horror, Confinement, Medical content, Stalking, Pregnancy, Fire/Fire injury, and Abandonment
Moderate: Emotional abuse, Infidelity, Sexism, and Sexual content
Minor: Ableism, Adult/minor relationship, Alcoholism, Animal cruelty, Animal death, Child abuse, Child death, Chronic illness, Confinement, Cursing, Deadnaming, Emotional abuse, Fatphobia, Genocide, Gun violence, Hate crime, Homophobia, Incest, Mental illness, Misogyny, Panic attacks/disorders, Physical abuse, Racism, Self harm, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Slavery, Suicidal thoughts, Terminal illness, Torture, Toxic relationship, Violence, Forced institutionalization, Blood, Police brutality, Kidnapping, Religious bigotry, Medical trauma, Stalking, Car accident, Murder, Pregnancy, Fire/Fire injury, Outing, Cultural appropriation, Gaslighting, Sexual harassment, Injury/Injury detail, Classism, and Deportation
aeeklund's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
Zoraida Cordova’s first adult novel is a breathless, magical story of falling stars and roses blooming from bodies, transmutation into moonstone and softly speaking fireflies, the planting of seeds borne from bodies and vines erupting from the ground in stark defense of outrage or intrusion.
This book spans decades, generations, continents. It tours Europe with a circus and puts down roots in a secluded valley. It purifies with fire and it rebuilds from ash.
It studies silence and screaming and whispers and song, art and cooking and writing and loving, loss and gain and bargaining and settling, love in all its many and varied forms, some truer than we let ourselves see and some elaborate lies we tell or are told.
And the women. Women strong and weak, vulnerable and stubborn. In denial, in acceptance, in all their nuanced, many-faceted glory. I loved these characters and the histories they spun, entangled together like the roots of the orchids, laurels, and ceiba trees they all channel or reflect.
This book was transporting. And important. And so, so lovely that I am aching for it, even now having crossed its expanse. Read this.
Graphic: Cursing and Toxic relationship
Moderate: Child abuse, Child death, and Sexual content
Minor: Animal cruelty and Panic attacks/disorders