Beautiful story with beautiful writing! I loved getting to know this world and hope to visit again and again.

Wild Beauty was unfortunately a DNF for me. This lovely book had a lot of things going for it. The premise was promising. I love books with 'witches' or unique magical abilities and Wild Beauty had an abundance of those things. The writing was also gorgeous and wonderfully descriptive. It was the pace that I didn't love. I struggled with picking this up for 2 weeks. It seemed like nothing was happening in the story. I was really intrigued by the curse and magic, but it was taking way too long for anything to happen. I ultimately DNFed at 29%.
I'll definitely give this author's other books a chance in the future since I enjoyed certain aspects of her writing.

For over a century, the Nomeolvides women have lived on La Pradera; lush and fruitful lands. The Nomelolvides women all have special abilities to call upon and grow a certain flower, usually based on their names. The only caveat is that any man the Nomeolvides women falls in love with end up disappearing.

The five youngest Nomeolvides women are hoping to break this cycle of love and loss by all being in love with the same woman, Bay Briar. What they didn't expect was for a young man to appear on the grounds one morning and change everything.

Told from the youngest Nomeolvides, Estrella, point of view and one of the young men that appears, Fel, this book is lyrically beautiful, and will entrance reader's from the start with the beauty that is La Pradera and the Nomeolvides women. McLemore tackles all kinds of tough issues in this book, and does so with grace and magic. Highly recommended for all library collections.

I am unable to adequately critique this book as I have been unable to finish it. It is beautifully written, but unfortunately the genre seems to be one that is not pulling me into the story. I have heard so many wonderful things about it and I wanted to read it and love it so bad, but instead I was unable to get past the first couple of chapters. I found myself rereading paragraphs, trying to make sense of who is whom and staring incredulously at the pages. While I'm certain it is a fantastic book for those that truly love magical realism, as I am only able to read a few books from this genre, it is not for me. 3 stars as I am required to give a star rating.

The link to the review will be added upon completing and polishing the review.

Basic Keywords and Intro:

Own Voices: Queer Latinx Women
-YA Fantasy Novel
-Third person Omniscient Narration + Dual POV
-La Pradera is a magical garden that the Nomeolvides women curate.
-Those women are a generation of 5 girls, and their mothers, and their Grandmas.
-La Pradera is a cursed land that vanishes any person who is truly loved by any of the Nomeolvides girls.
-The five girls are: Estrella, Calla, Gloria, Azalea, and Dalia.
-They are all in love with the same girl, Bay.
-For the 1st time ever, the La Pradera gifts the young girls a boy.
-The land that takes, gave back a boy who remembers nothing about his past.
-A boy who could vanish again if one of the girls falls in love him.

“This was the heart of being a Nomeolvides girl. The more she loved a boy, the more reasons there were not to touch him.”

Points to address:

-The writing style was everything! Beautiful, Breathtaking, and all of the synonyms that go with those 2 words.
-I believe that Anna-Marie did a brilliant job with how she connected the beautiful, whimsical aspects of life with the brutally blunt reality of the world that we live in.
-And that is what makes Wild Beauty so magical.

“Never underestimate what the ground under your feet knows, what it can do. What it can give you and what it can steal."

Things I liked:

-A lyrical and beautiful writing style.
-A unique take on Magical Realism.
-FLOWERS!!! I can’t believe that I’ve read and loved an entire book about flowers.
-Being torn apart when it came to deciding what I liked the most .
-Is it the melodious writing style, the spellbinding storyline, or the captivating traits of every single character.
-Addressing the exploitation of child labor, the bigotry towards immigrants, and racism.

“You’d be amazed how no one looks past that. Most of the time, people don’t look past what they think they know.”

Things I didn’t like:

-NIL! NIL! NIL! NIL! NIL! NIL! NIL! NIL! NIL!

I received an eARC in exchange with an honest review.

Several people have told me to check out Anna-Marie McLemore and I can certainly see why! This is a really lovely book that feels very grounded in cultural specifics while still building a unique magic system. The family dynamics reminded me a bit of Labyrinth Lost by Zoraida Cordova, and the romance was very sweet. For lack of a better term, the writing is very aesthetic -- lots of descriptions of scenery and outfits and flowers -- but I think McLemore pulls it off admirably. A beautiful fairy tale of a book.

I went into this book pretty sure that I wouldn't love it as much as I loved When The Moon Was Ours. It was good, but the plot and the magic weren't as cohesive as WTMWO, and the characters felt not quite as real. It was confusing at times, and flowed along in a sort of dream-like way -- which can be good, but it left me more with a sense of vagueness than wonder. The ending was powerful, although it felt a little sudden and didn't build up to it as much as I would have liked. The romance was good, and McLemore writes good kissing and intimacy. It was good, but sort of meandering, and just didn't hold together as strongly as WTMWO.

DNF. I tried so hard to get into this book but once I realized that I would never figure out the characters or the setting itself, I gave up. There are five girls immediately introduced but not by any way I could tell them apart. As I read I kept thinking it as taking place in the past but it sounded like it was supposed to be the present. Yet, that didn't seem right. Also, what country is this supposed to be? The characters might be Hispanic but that doesn't help me at all.

This is a lovely book. I was cautious of it because I disliked 'The Weight of Feathers', but this novel is a vast improvement upon that one.

Teen Estrella Nomeolvides and her cousins live on the beautiful Californian garden property, La Pradera, for generations. Known as "las hijas del aire", they are bound to the land, forming beautiful flowers that create breathtaking gardens, but the gift is a curse: every man loved by a Nomeolvides woman disappears. Just... dissipates. The cousins are all in love with the same woman, Bay Briar, and pray to the gardens to keep her safe from vanishing; instead, a young man they call Fel appears, thrust forth by the garden. Fel has choppy memories of his past, and Estrella takes it on herself to help him recover his memories. What none of them realize is that Fel's memories - Fel's past - is inextricably linked to the ugly truth behind a Pradera.

There is a lot going on in Wild Beauty. There are several subplots that intertwine with the main story, all moving toward the revelations at the end. Beautifully written, with fully realized characters, Wild Beauty can be confusing - there were characters and subplots that took me a few re-reads to fully get my head straight - and the story tends to meander, which may frustrate some readers. Readers familiar with magical realism will recognize this and press on. There's beautiful imagery, gender identity and fluid sexuality, and a respect for Latinx heroines and matriarchal family structures.

Wild Beauty has starred reviews from Booklist, Kirkus, and School Library Journal. Bust Magazine has a great write-up on the book and the author.

This book was so beautifully written! I wasn't too sure about it when I started since I haven't had the greatest luck with this author's other titles. But the cover was just stellar (esp the one from Owlcrate) and I knew I really had to try it! I loved the gardens of La Pradera and I really enjoyed reading about Estrella and Fell. I do think that we didn't really five cousins and I wish that number would have been cut. I think the story as a whole would have been a lot smoother. With as it sits parts of this book were slightly confusing trying to keep all of them together. I will say, however, that once you really just leave them as side characters you kinda forget they are even there. This story surrounds Estrella, Fell, Bay, Delhia, and the gardens as a whole and that is pretty much it. Everyone else like the grandmothers, Estrella's mom, and most of the other cousins are really just there.

This is one story with a lot of world building even though its just some gardens as some say. The gardens have their own life and it made the story feel like another world even though its set in ours. This made them come fully alive with this story! The mystery surrounding the woman of La Pradera was wonderful. I wished that the reveal would have come a little sooner so the story could have gone a little further but all in all, it was great.

I also loved how the author interweaves Spanish into the book. So many other authors don't use other languages in their titles. Everyone is just speaking another language or English and that's that. This having it woven into the story was perfect and I hope to find more books with this style.

If you are looking for a new world to fall for check this one out. You might get a little lost along the way but stick with it because you will fall in love with the Nomeolvides women I know I did!

The Pradera is where the Nomeolvides women lived for many generations. 5 women who have 5 daughters who are destine to have 5 daughters. All of this comes to an end when all the girls fall in love with another girl. However the Pradera always takes away the people they love so in order for the Pradera not to take this girl they all love, the girls ask the Pradera to keep her safe and give them an answer to their prayers. That's when an strange boy is born from the Pradera and he comes to change everything. This book was amazing, it's not only a lovely love story, where the characters are easy to love. But it is also whimsical, dreamy and enchanting, helping the reader understand the love the girls have for everything in the Pradera.

Anna-Marie McLemore’s lyrical Wild Beauty loses its way

WILD BEAUTY, by Anna-Marie McLemore, Feiwel & Friends, Oct. 3, 2017, Hardcover, $17.99 (young adult)

Wild Beauty, by Anna-Marie McLemore, is the third young adult novel I’ve read recently that has garnered rave reviews but failed to make an impression on me.

At the center of Wild Beauty are the Nomeolvides women. The Nomeolvides women have always stood out, even when they try to blend in. They are tied to the earth, and the bond is unbreakable.

Nearly a century ago, the Nomeolvides women moved to La Pradera, a barren estate no one would want to visit. But under the Nomeolvides’ touch La Pradera becomes a lush estate one can only dream of.

The estate’s beautiful gardens draw visitors from all over the world, but they come at a price — if one of the Nomeolvides women falls too deeply in love, their lover will vanish.

This seems the path everyone will follow until a strange boy appears in the gardens. He doesn’t remember who he is or where he came from. It appears La Pradera has given the women a gift, but it’s up to them to decide what to do with it.

I started out Wild Beauty with high hopes, and at first, they were met. McLemore’s prose is lyrical and inviting. I found her descriptions of the women pushing their fingers into the dirt and sprouting plants and flowers intriguing. But after a while, the prose seems to get in the way of the story. And halfway through the novel, I still felt like I knew next to nothing about the main characters.

Though I struggled with Wild Beauty, it has received a number of starred reviews, so I’ve included a few quotes and links to full reviews below.

“Part mystery, part love story, this evocative, lush novel is a delight for sophisticated readers.” —Kirkus

“A solid, must-have addition to McLemore’s growing body of work, this fantastical tale will delight her fans and entice a new audience.” — School Library Journal

WILD BEAUTY by Anna-Marie McLemore has been getting some rave reviews and I definitely was drawn to this absolutely lovely cover.

Described as "magical realism" and a "stunning exploration of love, loss, and family," McLemore's third young adult novel received starred reviews from Booklist, Kirkus AND School Library Journal. In it, Estrella and her cousins Azalea, Calla, Dalia, and Gloria pay a price for their magical abilities such as growing flowers from their bare hands. Their curse is that anyone they love will disappear and when they are all attracted to the young woman who will inherit the garden where they live, they try to protect her with surprising results.

I would give this book 3.5 stars as a a review*
I loved the writing of this book. It was so lovely and it captured me from page one. It is very detailed thought and at points i got lost in the details. I thought the world building was crafted so well and I could not see the twists and turns in the story coming. I felt like the pacing was much slower then I wanted it to be but the characters kept me engaged and overall i really enjoyed it. I hope to read more by this author soon!

BEAUTIFUL BOOK IS BEAUTIFUL. Once again, Anna-Marie McLemore has crafted a super original, magical, and GORGEOUS piece of fiction. She is definitely an auto-buy author for me.

Not only is this story unique, but it has representation in it! It’s diverse! Whaaaaaat?!

I went into this with very high expectations because of previous reviews of it I’d seen and because I loved her book “When The Moon Was Ours” so much. And it blew those expectations out of the water. I was a bit nervous when I started it though, because all of the women’s names were confusing to me and it didn’t start off very fast. But boy did I end up completely transfixed and engaged.

I won’t go into much detail about the plot specifically because 1. It’s honestly a difficult plot to explain correctly and 2. I don’t want to spoil a single thing. But I will say that it completely unique and wonderfully creative and artistic.

I just want to live in this author’s worlds and words. They are just so magical and colorful and vibrant. And each woman in this book had her own personality that I wanted to get to know better. Yes some girls were given more time and character development than others, but there are literally 15 women in the family of this book, plus 3 other very important characters who aren’t part of the family. I’d say given those circumstances the author did a damn good job of giving each character a voice.

I really don’t know what else to say; it’s a perfect, beautiful novel. Every single word is clearly carefully chosen, and I just am in awe of this book. Please read it, it just came out on October 3rd. LOVE IT.

I really enjoyed the writing style of the author--very descriptive, almost lyrical writing, reminiscent of Patricia McKillip. I thought the story was good, but not great--the characters didn't capture my attention as much as I like.

I want to love Anna-Marie McLemore's books, but I cannot finish them. Don't let me stop you though! I will still say that this book seems like it will be lovely for people who like magical realism and her other works.

Wild Beauty was one of the rare books where I absolutely adored the writing but ultimately failed to love due to the pacing. The writing is beautiful, lyrical, and magical, similar to Laini Taylor's or Roshani Chokshi's writing. As a reader, you'll savor each sentence, amazed at how vividly Anna-Marie McLemore conjures up the world of La Pradera. She captures the spirit of the gardens and the emotions of the Nomeolvides women perfectly. My enjoyment of the beauty of the writing is what kept me reading for most of the novel.

There were other parts of Wild Beauty that I adored and that the author handled beautifully. This novel has a focus on the importance of family and heritage. The LGBTQ representation was incredibly well done. There's some wonderful diversity. It deals with racism, sexism, and bias. It's about learning to accept yourself for who you are. It's about learning to love and to conquer your fears. Wild Beauty is one of the most feminist novels I've read lately. I would have absolutely adored it if the plot hadn't been so slow.

The pacing of the plot was the one main negative of this book for me. Everything progressed at a snail's pace until the ending. I actually ended up putting this one down a few times because the pacing just was too slow for me. However, the ending seamlessly combines the lyrical writing that permeates the book with some faster-paced action. If there rest of the book had been similar to the ending, it would have been a five-star read for me.

Wild Beauty is a beautifully written book that will immerse you in the world of the Nomeolvides women. You'll fall in love with them and your heart will break for them. This story will stay with you long after you turn the final page. I would recommend this one to readers who don't mind a slow-paced book.