CW: explicit sexual assault and heavy trauma discussion throughout, racial comments, LGBT+ slurs

Have you ever read a story that strips you raw and leaves you completely bare to the elements? This is what this story did to me. I was wholly unprepared for the emotional turmoil and onslaught I was going to go through. This story is so incredibly HEAVY and based on the experience of McLemore and their friend who were both assaulted by the same person.

With that being said, this story is so difficult to get through because of its content, but it is so worth it for the beautiful writing style and the beauty that is found in the hardest places. The Mirror Season is one of those books where you may need breaks to be able to continue reading it because it’s so heavy on trauma.

If you decide to read this one please make sure to take into account the heavy content warnings and the triggering content and always take care of yourself. You are the most important person in the whole wide world.

This is a heartbreaking gut punch of a book and the fact that Anne-Marie McLemore based it on her real life experience is all the more heartbreaking. And somehow it's so hopeful and beautiful at the same time. Just a powerhouse of a book.

“It costs something to listen to someone else’s story. People forget that sometimes. So I get it if you don’t want to hear mine.” The Mirror Season opens with Ciela leaving a party and driving up to a hospital with a boy she doesn’t know. The boy has been drugged and both he and Ciela have been sexually assaulted. In a moment of panic and denial, Ciela leaves the boy at the hospital and runs, trying to forget that night ever happened. But reminders crop up everywhere: in losing her magic as La Bruja de Los Pasteles and in the flowers whose delicate petals transform into dangerous and jagged mirrors all around her. When the boy from the party enrolls at Ciela’s school, she must balance trying to put that night behind her with their budding friendship, all while working to get her spark of magic back.

I have wanted to read The Mirror Season since Anna-Marie McLemore described their newest project as being about a girl so queer, that “even her dulce is pan.” One tweet about magic pan dulce and I was putting in desperate NetGalley requests. I knew I was going to love it, not just because it was about pan dulce, but because I’d read Dark and Deepest Red and was enchanted by McLemore’s astounding prose and romantic sensibility. The Mirror Season is everything I dreamed of— heartbreaking and magical and breathtaking in its writing. Ciela is a sexual assault surivor who tries to help Lock even when she’s barely holding on herself, and she spends the entire book trying to get back to the person she used to be— the vivacious Bruja de Los Pasteles. Her power— being able to guess what kind of pan dulce would most please a customer— is so cute and the panaderia was a perfect light backdrop for a story of grief and recovery. Ciela and Lock’s relationship unfolded beautifully and what really shone through was their humor and their clear chemistry. I also just loved seeing a queer Latinx girl growing up in SoCal— everything from the colorful house to the school uniforms to the nosy tia felt so true to my experience.

Obviously this book is heavy and vital. I tend to shy away from books on the topic of grief or sexual assault, but The Mirror Season is too well-written and too important to pass up. I also have to say that it left me feeling lighter, the novel is threaded with a sense of hope. Get yourself something sweet to go with this one.

**5/5 stars**
This is a difficult book to review, but an easy book to rate: it is undoubtedly a 5 star read. Anna-Marie McLemore's mastery of magical realism, romance, and communication of the queer Latinx experience through narrative gets better with every book. But The Mirror Season is difficult to review because it is deeply personal for the author and deeply personal for readers. A content warning for sexual assault/rape for the rest of this review.

Ciela and Lock both carry the weight of the same secret: that they were both victims of sexual assault at the same high school party. Ciela is burdened by additional knowledge of what happened that night that Lock doesn't know, knowledge that would compromise their budding relationship. She is haunted by slivers of glass—mirrors—that remind her of what happened and the sharpness of the pain it causes her and those around her. She hides these shards like she hides her pain. The magical realism of this metaphor, along with the parallels to Mexican fairytales, creates a beautiful narrative that emphasizes healing, forgiveness, and resilience.

Readers should be aware that the sexual assaults are explicitly recounted at various points in the novel. This may be triggering for some readers, but I think for McLemore, writing the assaults was a healing exercise for them. According to their Author's Note, they have been the victim of multiple sexual assaults, and that Lock's experience is based partially on the experience of a boy she knew in real life who was assaulted by the same person as them. That is why I say this is a deeply personal book for the author, and why this is a difficult book to review. I do not want to disrespect McLemore's experience, nor the experience of any other rape victim, by discrediting the value of explicitly narrating a sexual assault. It clearly serves a vital purpose in The Mirror Season; it is not trivialised.

I think, if taught appropriately and sensitively, this could be a powerful book to read in a high school English class in order to initiate dialogue on sexual assault, victim blaming, solidarity, and the protection of offenders. It is intersectional in its frameworks and so it would be intersectional in a classroom where many students may identify with Ciela's experience as a brown girl and Lock's experience as a male victim of rape.

As I do for every McLemore book, I encourage everyone to read The Mirror Season, though take precaution if sexual assault content is upsetting for you.

I won an early copy of this book from Fierce Reads as a part of their "Emotional Must-Reads Sweep." I wasn't really expecting to write a review for it, but after completing the novel and having it settle for a few days, I just want to come on here and say that I thought this book was absolutely incredible. After a scene immediately after the sexual assault, where Graciela is taking the boy who won't remember a thing to the hospital, were's introduced to these mirror shards that make their way into Ciela's eyes. Throughout the novel, she is trying to protect the ones she cares about from these shards, collecting every glass flower she can find and leaving them in her closet, until a few escape with the wind and end up in the eye of the boy, Lock. Ciela is protective to a fault, trying to shield others from the dangers she knows are emminent even if that means keeping secrets. And all the while, she's trying to process her trauma, alone, because she feels that sharing her story with her loved ones will be a burden. This was a tough book to read at times. There are flashbacks to the night of the attack, and bullies who feel the need to remind their victims of the worst possible events. I read parts through the NetGalley app on my phone while at work, and I would not suggest that unless you can hide away in a corner so your coworkers can't see your emotional journey while reading. The author has expressed a close connection with this novel, and I think their story is an important one to tell. I hope others whose hands this book falls into comes to appreciate this story just as much as I have. I already put in a request for a finished copy. *Thank you to NetGalley, Fierce Reads, and the publisher, Feiwel & Friends, for the e-copy, all thoughts and opinions are my own.*

This was such an incredibly written book that is a story about trauma and healing. It’s about two teens who realize that they were both sexually assaulted at the same party and develop a mirror glass in themselves. Both are haunted by the night though Lock doesn’t remember it and Ciela decides to help him survive.

This was such a wonderfully written book and I love how the author handled such a difficult topic. The story is raw and talks about the survival and feelings after the main characters were raped. The story structure was well done and I loved the involvement of the mirror glass. I also enjoyed the Mexican culture and learning about the different sweets Ciela made at her aunt’s bakery.

I enjoyed the main characters, Ciela and Lock. I enjoyed reading Ciela’s POV, seeing how she was struggling with being not able to tell the truth because of the race and social class she is compared to the others she goes to school with. She developed so much throughout the story and even helped Lock feel hope. There was a great developing romance between the main character which you will also enjoy.

This book had a well done ending. I was left with awe after finishing this book because I never read anything so pure and raw before. This was a well written book and I recommend it to fans of Jennifer Niven and those who love magic realism in their realistic books.

McLemore's books are just such beautiful examples of magical realism. The lyricism in the prose can be breathtaking, and the hurt and pain is so deeply felt in these ethereal images McLemore creates. This book also has one of the best examples of an unreliable narrator I've read in ages.

McLemore writes characters and relationships outside of the LGBT acronym. Their acclaimed novels featuring Queer, trans, non-binary, and gender diverse characters include When the Moon Was Ours and Blanca & Roja. The protagonist of The Mirror Season identifies as pansexual, a sexual orientation still misunderstood among LGBTQ+ individuals and allies. Each of McLemore’s novels is filled to the brim with memorable characters and ethereal prose. McLemore’s use of magical realism makes their storytelling even richer.

In their author’s note, McLemore mentions that not only is The Mirror Season inspired by the fairy tale The Snow Queen, but it is also based on their real life experience of being sexually assaulted. Like the main characters Ciela and Lock, McLemore and their friend (a man) were sexually assaulted at the same time and by the same perpetrator. Sexual assault and rape are difficult topics to write about, but McLemore writes the story with care, creating a well nuanced narrative about the trauma and healing after being raped and or sexually assaulted. As someone who had the same experience, I appreciate and commend McLemore for writing this powerful novel.

An incident involving inflated condoms floating in the boys’ locker room leads the school Principal to assign Ciela and Lock to clean it up. The two become friends as they bake together and explore a secret forest of trees slowly turning into glass. McLemore effortlessly blends realism with otherworldly elements like mirror shards embedded into skin and pieces of glass raining on a road. Like in The Snow Queen, the mirror shards in Ciela and Lock keep them from the truth. Ciela, afraid of hurting Lock, doesn’t reveal what happened that night right away. As Lock starts to acknowledge that he was drugged, he blames himself. The lack of communication between them accumulates over time until it becomes a hideous reflection of themselves, something they cannot turn away from.

McLemore, like in their previous novels, tackles sexuality and gender roles. Lock crochets and begins to enjoy cooking more with Ciela. Some of Ciela’s classmates assume she’s a lesbian after knowing that she once dated her best friend Jess. I lived in a small conservative town when I was younger, so I appreciate McLemore showing experiences of Latinx and or sexual and gender diverse people not seen a lot in the media.

The Mirror Season excels in telling a compelling story about reclaiming your agency after it’s violently ripped from you. It is a story of the harm coming from silence and double standards.

The Mirror Season by Anna-Marie McLemore will be available from Feiwel & Friends on March 16th.

Thank you to NetGalley, Macmillan Children’s Publishing Group, and Anna-Marie McLemore for allowing me to read The Mirror Season in exchange for an honest review.
A beautiful book about how teens deal with trauma in their lives, and how adults can be tuned into what their teens might be experiencing. When Ciela attended a party with her friend, she would never forget what happened to her that night and how she would deal with her actions. She just wanted to forget the party and what happened to her and a boy she didn’t know; but, when he was in her class the first day of school, the healing process had to begin....for both of them. This book handles bullying and trauma with grace with a promise of healing.

I was a huge fan of fairy tales as a child, and as an adult I love finding stories that update them in new and exciting ways. This is one of those stories. The Mirror Season is not so much a version of The Snow Queen, but it contains echoes of it with a modern twist. Instead of a physical journey to find a missing friend, we have a psychological journey through trauma and into healing, to find one’s self again. It is not a direct translation, of course, but a few of the key elements show up.
The protagonist, Ciela, was traumatized at the same time as Lock, at a school party. When he later shows up at her school, he is unable to remember her; yet, they have a connection that goes deeper than just that night. Ciela is uncertain of what she remembers, though, and how much to reveal to him about what happened. The continued presence of their tormentors, and the fact that they know what happened too, adds an element of suspense to Ciela and Lock’s growing relationship.
There is also magic in this novel, in the ability that Ciela has inherited: she can tell what pastry someone needs just by looking at them. But her trauma seems to have cost her this gift, until helping Lock starts to bring it back. The author does a good job of paralleling the way that Ciela’s returning ability to sense the needs of others coincides with her increasing awareness of what the trauma has done to her, her own needs, and her returning self-identity as she moves towards wholeness.
The mirror, which in this novel is a silvery sheen that changes everyday objects into razor sharp glass, still breaks and gets into hearts and eyes as in the original fairy tale. Ciela believes this is her fault and attempts to find all the mirror pieces before they can shatter. She is not always successful, and notices that a shard has gotten into Lock. This manifestation of her guilt gets tied into the guilt she feels about her role in what happened at the party, and she rarely looks at Lock without noticing the shard.
All in all, this was a well-told exploration of healing after a traumatic event. It reminded me of The Beauty that Remains in the way its characters are dealing with difficult situations, badly at the outset, gradually work through their feelings, and end, maybe not happily, exactly, but with a definite upturn in outlook. I can definitely see myself recommending this, though with trigger warnings.

***eArc provided by NetGalley & Macmillan in exchange for an honest review.***

What a first Anna-Marie McLemore book to read. I've been hearing that their books are astounding, beautifully written pieces of YA fiction and wow did The Mirror Season not disappoint.

There have been quite a few YA novels about sexual assault, but none QUITE like this. That Ciela and Lock have the same pain, the same scars that they can't quite figure out how to work through is brutal and honest. I think McLemore does an absolutely amazing, and completely heartbreaking, job of giving out information about the night of the assaults. It floored me as I read it, and it continues to floor me as I think about it later.

Also, I love a good Author's Note and McLemore's at the end of this book absolutely ended me. I can't wait to pick up more of their books and delve into the beautiful writing, the magic, and the emotional catharsis.

I wanted to like this story given the nature of what it was discussing (mental health, grief, sexual trauma) but at the end of the day I just didn't vibe with the book and had to DNF.

I did not finish this story. When I read the blurb I was really excited about reading the book, but I got 15% into the story and felt like I was still waiting for something to happen. If I had more time, I would probably continue to see if it every picks up because it has so much potential. However, at 15% there was still little interaction between the two characters, actually there's little interaction between characters at all, and I was still really confused about what was going on in the story. I do hope that I might be able to find time to go back and read it some day, but unfortunately it won't be anytime soon. Usually, I really like books or I don't and this book has left me unsure about how I feel about it. So I honestly, don't know if I would recommend it or not. I guess the best I can say is give it a try and see if it works for you.

I absolutely loved The Mirror Season. Anna-Marie McLemore's style of writing is so beautiful, and I loved how healing from trauma was addressed in this book

The Mirror Season is gorgeously lyrical from the beginning. It has all the characteristics of what I've come to associate with Anna-Marie McLemore: words that weave tapestries of color and emotion. The Mirror Season is an emotional and moving book about sexual assault and healing. Told in our contemporary world, a world where money and privilege mean punishments lose their meaning. Where queer, brown, poor, teens bear the brunt of fists.

Anna-Marie McLemore is a master at creating complex and compelling characters with vulnerabilities, dreams, and memories. The Mirror Season moved me to tears. The ways bullies latch onto kindness we show and try to turn it into weakness. How we live in a society that doesn't believe victims. Knowing if people don't believe us in the little ways, the small grievances, that no one will believe us about the vicious. The crimes that society deems as taboo so they turn to dust in the air, battles of words where some are made of gold and others of dirt.

It can feel like we've been broken into pieces. That we can never feel whole again, to find joy in the memories and the little moments. But the broken edges of us can refract light into rainbows. Through truth, healing, and love we can piece together what we thought could be no more. We can turn it into something new. Something brilliant and dazzling. Into someone who may be different, but who is just as much a part of us and our past. I truly don't have enough words in my heart to describe how much I adored The Mirror Season

"But we're still laughing, like we know we have to. Like we know there's no way to live with it except to laugh every time you remember how."

I didn't know how much I needed this book until I actually read it. This book is absolutely stunning, poignant, and well written. It exposes the flaws in every person, the flaws that were and always have been in society, and most importantly, the flaws and tiny imperfections in ourselves. It sheds light on rape culture and the results of sexual assault, and illuminates this suffocating darkness by giving us hope that there is magic in life, and the people that come with it.

Ciela's whole life is turned upside down when she and a boy unknown to her, Lock, are sexually assaulted at the same time, in the same room. As a result of this, everything around her is shattered mirrors, and she loses her gift--the power to determine the type of pan dulce something might need.

"Don't make me not tell you everything I know. Don't make me be the only one who knows it. I can't know it all by myself anymore."

This was a delightfully emotional surprise which I loved and enjoyed immensely. This story is so, so important. With a bakery, a secret garden, and a hint of magic, The Mirror Season is truly, heartwrenchingly beautiful.

I've been a fan of Anna-Marie McLemore's books for years. The way they write such poignant and intrusive stories, pulling into the raw core of what makes humans, humans, is just fantastic. Every word, every line, is lyrical and gritty. The Mirror Season hits the same way as the rest of McLemore's books, but there was just one difference that caused it to hit even deeper, pulling at my heart so tightly: this one is personal. The Mirror Season is personal in a way readers just don't see anymore, except in memoirs or other non-fiction. They even included an author's note in the back explaining just how real the events of this novel were, except with McLemore's amazing magical realism intertwined and some minor rewriting to protect the individuals involved.

In The Mirror Season, Ciela is bruja with pastries, having been passed down the same magic her great grandmother had: the ability to connect a person with a baked good that may not solve all of their problems, but can, at the very least, ease some stress. Her town comes to the pastelería solely for Ciela's abilities to know what they want before even they know. One night, one bad, tragic night Ciela just wants to forget, takes her ability away from her. But she can't forget it. Not when the people who did it to her go to her school. And definitely not when the boy she thought she rescued after that night starts attending her school. She doesn't know how much the Lock remembers, but it becomes apparent he remembers little when their tormentors begin tormenting both of them. She makes a vow to help him, whether he understands the reason why or not. Slowly, she begins getting her magic back the more she helps him; but, the more she's with Lock and the closer she gets to him, she uncovers more memories of that night, memories that just might unravel everything she's trying so hard to keep.

McLemore is a word wizard when it comes to magical realism. They are capable of writing that fine line between pure fantasy and realistic fiction to the point where you're second guessing whether the magic was even real to begin with or if it was just a touch of fate. It's been a while since I've been unable to read a book slowly because of the tension and my nerves being so high. The Mirror Season kept me on the edge of my seat, flipping through pages so quickly I couldn't (and didn't) want to put it down. I thank Anna-Marie McLemore for being wiling to write their story, giving the world something gritty and real, hopefully helping those who may have been through something similar to have the power to speak up and speak out.

The Mirror Season by Anna-Marie McLemore was a surprise. I wasn't expecting the magical twist to the story and even by the end, I wasn't sure if it was intended to be "real" or just a figment of the female protagonists imagination. Although, right at the beginning of the book, I figured out exactly what had happened at the party, I still found the story interesting and compelling to read. I particularly enjoyed reading about the cultural influences and the traditions of the area where they lived. The story was written well enough for me to visualize various scenes and to experience the color swirls that the writer gave the reader through the female protagonist. As for the male protagonist, I can't say that I've ever met anyone quite like him. At times he seemed more fragile than I thought he should be and at other times it seemed as if he tossed away his curtain of trauma and was perfectly able to deal with the world without it. If there was anything I would change about the book it would be the authors notes at the end. Though I had been right there all along throughout the book, the end notes made me a bit uncomfortable.

This book is my everything. It’s an instant favorite. Just when I thought AMM couldn’t write a book more perfectly composed for me, they prove me wrong. Each new release captures more of my heart, has more of my bookish buzzwords, and speaks to me more intimately than the last.
This is the quickest I’ve ever read an AMM book. That may have to do with the fact that it has more dialogue, interaction, & real life and less magic & lyrical writing. But it also may be because of how specifically I felt it spoke to me. The ways being a queer (specifically pan/bi) survivor of sexual assault affects your like, sexual capabilities, tendencies, & gravitations.
Yet despite this book revolving around such a heavy topic/situation and both main characters are Going Thru It, it somehow still felt light-hearted a lot. I think Ciela is the biggest reason for this; she was actually like, really funny? And I super believed her and Lock’s chemistry. I can see why they love each other.
“The Mirror Season” felt different from any other AMM book. It was a different kind of queer than their previous ones… I can’t really explain it better than that. It’s also got more actual school stuff in it, and feels more grounded in the real world. Ciela and Lock aren’t perfect people; they are fallible and fumbling and growing and look and think like real people. They have flaws inside and out - and I feel so deeply for them and connected to & with them both.
This book helped heal a piece of me. I can’t express how deeply I mean that. To be so seen in a piece of literature, and to have the writing style speak to me and be so extraordinary… it feels like a gift. Oh also, the author’s note made me cry more than anything, which is saying something because I was a fucking wreck the whole time I read this.
Please I beg you, read this as soon as it comes out on March 16th.

I’ll read everything they write. McLemore is one of the best writers of this generation. Compelling, creative.