Wild Beauty

by Anna-Marie McLemore

[Briana @ Pages Unbound]

Wild Beauty is one of those captivating books half-caught between fantasy and reality. The protagonists live in our world, speaking Spanish and praying to the Christian God, yet their lives play out in an enchanted garden of their own making. The women of the family are blessed with the ability to make flowers grow in any soil, any weather; they are cursed with the fact that anyone they love romantically eventually disappears. The mix of the two worlds is on some occasions jarring, but when the focus remains on the women’s lives, their hopes and fears and relationships with each other, the result is pure magic.

The book is told from the alternating points of view of Estrella, one of the youngest cousins living in the garden, and Fel, a boy Estrella dug up from the ground who initially cannot remember anything about his past. One can see the romance coming from a mile away, even as Estrella swears not to fall in love too hard, lest Fel disappear. However, their relationship was one of the least interesting facets of the book for me. Rather, I loved watching Estrella interact with the other women of her family and with the greedy man who comes to have legal ownership over the garden where her family lives. I loved watching Fel become part of the family and think hard about his past and the family he must have once had.

Estrella’s four cousins are all well-developed and become primary characters in their own rights. Their mothers and grandmothers are more sketches, groups in the background who seem to function as one rather than individuals. But perhaps it is not surprising that a YA book would forefront the young characters and push the older ones away. At any rate, I did enjoy reading about each of the cousins and learning their personalities and seeing how they acted as a family—sometimes fighting and bitter but always ready to have each other’s backs.

In terms of plot, I’m somewhat conflicted about the “big reveal” near the end of the story. It’s certainly not something I saw coming, in part because I’m not 100% convinced it makes a lot of sense. However, arguably part of the draw of the story is going with the flow and accepting that sometimes things don’t make sense; sometimes they just are. We can try to react to them, but we cannot necessarily change them or stop them.

Wild Beauty is ultimately a book to be savored and thought over. It’s about family and friendship and trying to make your own path while being beholden to others. It’s about beauty and sorrow and pain and what we do to live with ourselves and the world we have inherited. Some people might find it a bit of a slow read, but personally I thought it worthwhile.