i don't really have much to say about this one. nothing made me stark-hopping mad, i just didn't like it because it seemed to be in turns either dull, incoherent or both. it seemed to me half-formed, like the author had a good idea but then didn't really know how to execute it or what she was doing, which could have (and should have) been rectified by a good editor.

basically, i didn't really think anything made much sense at all. what was the overall aim and plot, anyway? preventing that dude from killing all those children at the orphanage and raising carla? why didn't they just find the guy and kill him, and get carla and raise her, instead of all this train palaver? i just think everything needed a little bit more work, and thought.

Things I liked:

The writing of this book is incredibly rich and very sensual. You feel drawn into the world from page one and every place that Juanita goes, you feel like you can picture it very clearly. I really like books that are set in desert settings, and I feel like this was one of the books where I could feel the desert very viscerally.

The characters are interesting and well developed; they are all flawed and all of them do bad things, but they are treated as the nuanced people that they are rather than lionized or vilified. The main character is a wonderful strong and complex and nuanced female character who gets thrown into a lot of terrible situations and gets through it with fortitude and determination, and I really appreciate that.

Several aspects of the worldbuilding were quite interesting. Although I found it a little hard to keep up with, the relationships between the families involved were satisfyingly twisty and kept you interested as the author revealed more and more details. The magical aspects and the spirit world were executed very well; I found the fact that spirit guides are just as variable and sometimes untrustworthy as living people very refreshing.

The author tackles head-on the challenges of being a woman in this novel. Juanita deals with sexual assault, rape, pregnancy, general assumptions and limitations based on her being a woman, etc and while some of this is hard to read, it's treated honestly without glossing over the issues or playing them up for shock value (for the most part).

Things I liked a little less:

Although I just said I appreciate how the author tackles tough issues, I did think that the rape and sexual assault got a little gratuitous at some point. Some scenes made my skin crawl and the fact that Juanita had to work with her assaulter later on in the book...I felt for her, a lot. It's not a dealbreaker, but I have a bit of a weak stomach for scenes of sexual assault and they were quite vivid, with the power differential very plain. It's not necessarily a flaw, but something I personally felt hard to read.

Although I found Juanita to be a wonderful character, besides Juanita and her deceased mother, grandmother and best friend there were practically no female characters with a significant role. Again, not necessarily a flaw, but I would have liked more.

I won't go into detail in order to avoid spoilers, but I found the climactic scene to be a little rushed, hard to follow, and resolved too easily. It felt out of place compared to the rest of the novel, and then the novel ended. I really enjoyed the novel as a whole, but I would have to say the ending was the least satisfying part.

Finally, the relationship between Juanita and Guide skeeved me out a little, to be perfectly honest. He was over 100 years old, if I remember correctly, and she was in her teens when they met and barely...seventeen or eighteen, if I remember right? when their relationship veers towards the sexual. Relationships with a large age or power differential make me very uncomfortable, and this relationship had both. Additionally, the way that he treated her upon a few occasions made me very uncomfortable with the relationship as a whole, especially since she is in a vulnerable position compared to him. And the resolution of Juanita choosing that she wants to be with him and raise his baby at the end just felt very...I don't know, I just feel like she was very young and choose to base her entire life upon this man who is not really good for her anyway. This is a matter of personal taste though, and may not put other readers off like it did me.

Some other minor gripes: I am not a fan of the "sexual healing" trope and I was not a fan of it in this book. I also did not really appreciate the fact that the gay male character spent time flirting with Juanita's assaulter despite the fact he had a life partner. It's a minor gripe, again, but I am very sensitive about how queer folks are portrayed in literature, especially if they are one of the only queer characters, and that just rubbed me the wrong way.

However, on the whole I enjoyed the book a lot. The plot was creative, the world was rich and interesting, and the writing was engrossing. Personally, I would say that the writing and the feeling that it created for me as a reader was by far the highlight of this novel.