Review – Wild Beauty by Anna-Marie McLemore (4.5/5 stars)

Reading Level: Young Adult
Genre: Fantasy
Length: 352 pages
Publisher: Feiwel & Friends
Release Date: October 3, 2017
ISBN-13: 978-1250124555
Stand Alone or Series: Stand Alone
Source: Bought
Rating: 4.5/5 stars

“For nearly a century, the Nomeolvides women have tended the grounds of La Pradera, the lush estate gardens that enchant guests from around the world. They’ve also hidden a tragic legacy: if they fall in love too deeply, their lovers vanish. But then, after generations of vanishings, a strange boy appears in the gardens.

The boy is a mystery to Estrella, the Nomeolvides girl who finds him, and to her family, but he’s even more a mystery to himself; he knows nothing more about who he is or where he came from than his first name. As Estrella tries to help Fel piece together his unknown past, La Pradera leads them to secrets as dangerous as they are magical in this stunning exploration of love, loss, and family.”

This was a very beautifully written and lyrical story about a family of women who are tied to the land they live on. Amazingly they are able to call flowers from the soil with their hands. In addition to that, any person they fall in love with disappears, so they are cursed to never be able to carry out a life with someone they love.

When the most recent generation of women sacrifices their most treasured items to the land, the land gives them a boy. A boy who seems to be from one hundred years ago but doesn’t remember any of his past. They struggle to figure out the mystery behind him and what he means to their family. They all also struggle to figure out the history of the land that has bound them all to it.

This story reminds me a lot of Sarah Addison Allen’s “Garden Spells” or Catherynne Valente’s writings. The story is lush and glittering, full of beauty and flower petals. Somehow it also remains real, true, poignant and earthy. There is a lot of magical realism in here as well.

Overall I really enjoyed this book. This is like a very sweet dessert; I wouldn’t want to read this style of writing all the time but it is a beautiful and endearing thing to savor once in a while.

This book goes towards the following reading challenges:
– Goodreads Reading Challenge
– Mount TBR Reading Challenge