The Strange and Beautiful Sorrows of Ava Lavender

by Leslye Walton

A 2015 William C. Morris YA Debut Award Finalist

Magical realism, lyrical prose, and the pain and passion of human love haunt this hypnotic generational saga.

Foolish love appears to be the Roux family birthright, an ominous forecast for its most recent progeny, Ava Lavender. Ava — in all other ways a normal girl — is born with the wings of a bird. In a quest to understand her peculiar disposition and a growing desire to fit in with her peers, sixteen-year old Ava ventures into the wider world, ill-prepared for what she might discover and naive to the twisted motives of others. Others like the pious Nathaniel Sorrows, who mistakes Ava for an angel and whose obsession with her grows until the night of the summer solstice celebration. That night, the skies open up, rain and feathers fill the air, and Ava’s quest and her family’s saga build to a devastating crescendo. First-time author Leslye Walton has constructed a layered and unforgettable mythology of what it means to be born with hearts that are tragically, exquisitely human.

• ISBN10: 0763665665
• ISBN13: 9780763665661
• Publish Date: 25 March 2014 (first published 13 March 2014)
• Publish Status: Active
• Publish Country: US
• Imprint: Candlewick Press,U.S.
• Format: Hardcover
• Pages: 320
• Language: English
• URL: https://penguinrandomhouse.com/books/isbn/9780763665661

Reviews

[liz089]

Such a gorgeous and magical tale 3 Perfection

[Jyc]

★★ // a case of good writing that i can easily admire, but a story that i just can’t seem to get into.

[Bianca]

TO MANY, I WAS MYTH INCARNATE, the embodiment of a most superb legend, a fairy tale. Some considered me a monster, a mutation. To my great misfortune, I was once mistaken for an angel. To my mother, I was everything. To my father, nothing at all. To my grandmother, I was a daily reminder of loves long lost. But I knew the truth — deep down, I always did. I was just a girl.

— Well that was strange and uhhh beautiful? But kidding aside, it's a really beautiful book about how love makes us such fools.

[nightingalereads]

3.25 stars

I'm conflicted about how to rate this book. The writing was very beautiful, almost fanciful, and I liked learning about all of the characters. Jack and Vivianne's story was, by far, my favorite. Objectively, it deserves a 4 star rating from me, but something about the way the story unfolded, especially towards the end, left me dissatisfied. A few of the characters didn't progress in a way I'd hoped they would, and eventually I reached a point where I couldn't enjoy reading about them. Overall, though, it's a very lovely and atmospheric novel. I'm glad I read it.

[Ashley]

Not for me. Objectively the writing was quite beautiful and interesting but it soooo wasn't my style. The magical realism wasn't for me at all.

Its a nicely written book, very strange (which is both a positive and negative really). I think I could've liked it a lot more if the narration wasn't first person omniscient as the novel had a lot of pretty details but all in all they never really revealed much about the characters to me so they occasionally weighed the novel down and seemed superfluous. I don't really like generational sagas so that possibly affected my opinion of it, as though I sympathized with each characters tragedies I didn't really feel attached to them. The writing's quite nice, a lot of well thought out sensory imagery and the whole premise is very original.

[laughingrachel]

This is a heart-breaking, multi-generational story about the scars of love and how they can affect us and by extension - our family. The book explores that there are different types of love, that it's never too late for love and that locking yourself away from love might not protect you from sorrows. ...At least that's what I got out of it. I really enjoyed the hint of paranormal that this book touches on as well.

[empressbrooke]

I wasn't too thrilled with this at first. I rolled my eyes a bit at how SO very precious the magical bits were, and what is up with magical realism always revolving around multi-generation families filled with tragedy? But by the time the plot brought its focus onto Ava herself, it pulled things together in a way that I loved. In retrospect, I actually liked how the earlier parts of the book had a bit of "stuff of family legend" feel to them. I spent the last 50 pages completely teary-eyed, it was moving without feeling saccharine.

[leahrosereads]

To many, I was myth incarnate, the embodiment of a most superb legend, a fairy tale. Some considered me a monster, a mutation. To my great misfortune, I was once mistaken for an angel. To my mother, I was everything. To my father, nothing at all. To my grandmother, I was a daily reminder of loves long lost. But I knew the truth--deep down, I always did.
I was just a girl.

With an opening like that, I just knew what I was going to read was going to be magnificent, and I was right. Although, I didn’t realize just how magnificently sad Ava’s life was going to become.

THE STRANGE AND BEAUTIFUL SORROWS OF AVA LAVENDER started off slow, for me. I had picked up this book because of the hype, but I just assumed that I would be reading the story of Ava Lavender, and only her. I didn’t think that I would be seeing her family’s past, the way I did, and how by knowing that past, I was able to understand Ava’s life all the better.

Love makes us such fools.

Love, and the disasters that fall on all of us when we do love, played such a significant part to this story. From Maman (Ava’s great grandmother) losing the love of her life and more, to Emilienne (Ava’s grandmother) who also lost so much when it came to love, and Viviane (Ava’s mother), who went through heartbreak and never really overcame it; I realized that when it came to love, Ava’s story would probably have a similar fate. Love has not been kind to her family.


It did take a while to meet Ava, but when we did, she came into this world on her birthday, with a very unique attribute attached to her back - wings. She grew up in seclusion, kept in her home, because her mother feared that people wouldn’t understand or would fear Ava and her wings.

And yet, Ava still made friends. She still found love, and she still discovered that the world does have some messed up people in it, and that when that darkness touches you, sometimes you cannot recover.


I pretty much loved most aspects of this book. Writing and story were great. The characters were really interesting to read about, and I could only feel sorry that these women had had such horrific luck when it came to love in their life. This ended up being such a darker tale than I had anticipated, but even so, I loved it to the very end.


The secondary characters in this story really made this for me. Mostly, I loved Gabe, the poor love struck fool (he fell hard and in forever love with Viviane) and Rowe, who loved Ava fully and without any reserve. If she didn’t have her wings, I think she would have broken this weird “curse” on her family when it came to love. Rowe was a gentle soul, and so was Ava. Together, I think they would have been perfectly happy and content falling and staying in love.

I absolutely despised Jack Griffith and Nathaniel Sorrows, both of course for very different reasons. However, they were so completely necessary for this story, and so even with all the heartbreak they caused, without them, this story wouldn’t have been as brilliant as I think it was. Although it would have been a much happier tale without these two bastards in it.


I definitely recommend reading THE STRANGE AND BEAUTIFUL SORROWS OF AVA LAVENDER if you haven’t already. I felt like this book deserved the hype it’s received.

[Stephanie]

This book was really beautiful. I can only be certain that this is touted as Young Adult by the sole fact that the main character is a teenager. If she wasn't? This would easily be a novel found in the literary fiction section.