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.