A refreshing take within the fairytale genre featuring interesting characters and a compelling story. The different shifts in character from chapter to chapter keeps things fresh and allow us to enjoy the story from alternative perspectives and see things in new light.

Anna-Maria McLemore has done a great job with this novel and I’m looking forward to seeing more of her work in future.

I received a digital copy of this book from Netgalley for an honest review.

I should just stop trying to read books with magical realism because I hardly ever like them. Things are never explained to my liking and I just find it really hard to get immersed in this type of world. I thought this book might be different because I love the story of Snow White and Rose Red but it wasn't.

This is my first time I have read anything by Anna-Marie McLemore. I really enjoyed her writing style, it won’t be for everyone though. I do own another book by Anna-Marie McLemore that I hope to get to in 2019.

The Del Cisne girls are not only sisters but they’re best friends and rivals. Blanca and Roja are polar opposites: how they act and how they look. Blanca has blonde hair, light, obedient and graceful. Roja has red hair, dark, and manipulative.

I liked all four of the main characters; Blanca, Roja, Yearling, and Page. I loved both the romantic relationships and the friendships too. I really like Yearlings and Pages grandmothers. There are LGBT characters and relationships.

Quotes I liked and loved:

“it is about the sudden understanding that you owe something other than what you were and that what you are is more beautiful than what you once thought you had to be”

“Because that power, that anger in you, that is the best thing you have”

“So Claim it. Pick yourself up and use it.”

“There wasn’t anything like pity in the October air, chilled and smelling like wood and ash.”

“it meant birch tree, or birch forest. It was a name whose meaning held how our family had come from hills wooded with those straight-trunked, pale-barked trees.”

“I existed as whatever part of the woods would have me, rocks or crows or fallen leaves”

“They just let me live in them for as long as they could take the dead-weight of my heart.”

“even if there is no retracing your path, no unbreaking what has been broken, the heart of you, the heart of everything, can still knit back together.”

I really enjoyed this book, I devoured this book. I absolutely would recommend this to you or anyone. The writing might not be for everyone but I loved her writing style. I gave it a 4/5 stars I will definitely be buying it once I get the chance.

I received this as an earc from NetGalley, I’m thankful being approved to read this.

Anna-Marie McLemore’s Blanca & Roja is a twist on an old tale: two sisters challenge the story they’ve been told, and the roles they’ve been given.

Blanca & Roja is a twist on the classic fairytale, Snow White and Rose Red, and shares the tale of a family under a curse. Unto each generation will be born two sisters, and at their coming of age, one of them will be turned into a swan. Blanca is the older, gentler, sweet sister, and Roja is a bit rougher around the edges. The girls must work through a curse that tries to pit them against one another, reaching through the thorns to hold on to their love for each other.

We featured this book on the October 19th episode of the YA Cafe Podcast. We have discussed McLemore’s work on the show before – her story Glamor appeared in the Radical Element anthology discussed in episode 6 and we were obsessed! Her story Love Spell appeared in the Toil & Trouble anthology discussed in episode 28.

Check out the episode for the following highlights:

Spoiler-Free

*3:54 Does this book fit into the magical realism genre? We have feelings.

*7:33 We chat about this book’s vague sense of time and place, and how that influenced the story.

*9:43 This book has a very unique voice on gender identity – how the author’s personal life may have shaped that.

*11:50 Colorism and ‘passing’, in this story and the author’s other works.

Spoiler-Informed

*19:48 The recurring theme of “light vs. dark”.

*23:09 We dig deeper into the other two narrative voices, Page & Yearling/Barclay.

*26:15 The Mary’s vs. The Mary Magdalene’s, how the characters in this book subvert fairy tale norms.

This book is seriously gorgeous, which is no surprise for the Anna-Marie. I went into this book with unbelievably high expectations, and it surpassed all of them. I fell in love with every single word of this exquisite novel. Once again, I want to live in these words and Anna-Marie's world she has created. It's so original and beautiful.

I adored the 4 main characters deeply and honestly was excited about all of their POVs. I maybe cared a bit more about Roja and Yearling - those precious bbs try to be so tough but are actually lovable cinnamon rolls. I understood Blanca and Roja's layered relationship with each other and was invested in it. Maybe Yearling and Page's relationship could have been fleshed out more... I kind of wanted more "show me don't tell me" as to why they were so very close. Like... SO close.

On another note, this was surprisingly quick to read for one of her books. Usually it takes me a while to read her books not only because I want to soak every sentence in, but also because it's dense magical realism that you have to read carefully. And usually her plots have such slow burns. This one wasn't like that though. In Blanca & Roja, the story starts from the very beginning and just keeps having things happen. But it still manages to take time to develop the familial relationships, atmosphere, and history wonderfully.

What more can I say? The story is so very original, it has amazing representation (no surprise there, either), and I really could relate to parts of it. Especially the idea of being a fair-skinned member of a Hispanic family and feeling like a let down.

Side note: the author's note was the thing that made me cry the most, so please don't skip over that if you choose to read this book!

Needless to say, I highly recommend this book.

I didn't know much about this book besides the synopsis so I didn't have any preconceived ideas when I started to read it. I also knew little to nothing about Snow White and Rose Red and Swan Lake which inspired this book. I found the story interesting, it kept me compelled to read more. It was more than the relationship between the sisters and in turn, their relationship with those around them. It was definitely a lesson in believing you are more than what others tell you, you are. It was fast paced, and while told from different perspectives, it still flowed well and provided interesting and compelling viewpoints. It is a book that would recommend to anyone who loves the original fairy tales and those who love fantasy and/or stories of the strengths of love between sisters.

It is difficult to summarize this book without giving too much away so give how the author explains it, which is very accurate and makes it enticing to read. I highly recommend to anyone who loves stories about sisters and all types of romance/ love stories.

"Blanca and Roja are the latest in the long line of del Cisne girls - a Latinx family who are always cursed to have two daughters, one who survives and one who is taken by the swans. No matter what they do, one sister is always taken. And Roja has always known it will be her. How can it not be? With her fiery red hair and darker skin, she looks like the wicked girl, the witch, the fairy tale villain from all the stories.

Roja and fair-haired Blanca try to prevent either one meeting their fate. As they attempt to fight the curse (and the swans), another story takes place. A cygnet and a bear who the sisters take in and care for turn out to be two missing local boys.

The bear, Yearling, is a rich white boy from an abusive family, and the cygnet, Page, is a trans boy from a family of apple farmers. Two romances develop slowly through evocative description, with Blanca and Page's romance being especially sensual and exciting. The romantic themes move alongside family drama, magical prophecy and a desperate fight to avoid destiny."

I thought this book was good but not great -- it was trying to do too many things all at once, and the prose, while beautiful, was sometimes a little overwrought (although at the same time, it was the sort of overdramatic feeling that actually fits a teenage narrator, so maybe it's a feature, not a bug). It's really hard to pull off having four POV characters, and in order to fit in them all, the reader gets kind of short-changed on seeing backstory instead of being told it happened. We got a fair amount of Blanca and Roja pre-crisis, which I appreciated -- it gives the book a solid grounding in how the relationship between the sisters is being changed by what's going on -- but then way less about Page and Yearling, which... if you're going to run into the woods and turn into a baby swan because you can't stand the thought of your bro turning into a bear in the woods by himself, I'd like more than one scene establishing how your friendship got That Close, you know? Your mileage may vary, though. I also have very mixed feelings about Blanca & Roja as an adaptation of Snow White and Rose Red, which is one of my favorite fairy tales (largely because of the Patricia Wrede adaptation, which manages to stick weirdly close to the details of the fairy tale's plot despite being set in Elizabethan England with fairies and witches). I wanna see more about the animal transformations! If Yearling's going to be a bear, make him being a bear a bigger plot point! Give me more bonding between the sisters and their suitors in animal form!

That said, there were a number of things about the book that I liked without reservation: Lynn and Tess's relationship, the way Yearling's disability was referenced consistently and not just when it was convenient for the plot, the depiction of Roja's crippling period cramps. Overall, a solid YA novel, just not one that I loved or see myself wanting to reread.

McLemore's new release, BLANCA & ROJA, is a fantastic and fantastical novel of magical realism. The author employs lyrical and gorgeous writing, complex characters, and representation that addressees different identities to craft a moving retelling mash-up of delight that pulls from two fairy tales and one ballet. I'm so glad I discovered her writing in the ALL OUT anthology. My only qualms (minor, at best) were that the writing style became a bit repetitive at times in the latter half of the book and that the magical aspects of the world were sometimes ill-defined.

4.5 stars - my best read of 2018 so far

I love the way McLemore crafts the language of her books. She gives great messages about going beyond being just one thing. I love how she always represents diverse characters, and this book is no exception. Definitely a great read for lovers of fairy tales and magical realism.

I heard many rave reviews for Anna-Marie’s new release on social media, so I was definitely interested in reading it and seeing what all the buzz was about.

This book is meant to be a reimagining of Snow-White and Rose-Red, which I haven’t even heard of until now. I hear it’s a beautiful story, though. It’s about two sisters that are born into a family where, with each generation of girls, one is turned into a swan when they turn fifteen. To Blanca and Roja, this is just a challenge to defy the swans and for sisters to protect each other.

Plot/Setting
To some, this story may be confusing as hell. I won’t lie. Some it it did confuse me, but the beauty of the entire book alone surpassed that confusion and just had me hooked. The vivid setting was beautiful in my head, but it was more so the words. The words just flowed and the descriptions and metaphors just captured me. As I was reading through the pages and this story about sisters ultimately doing anything for each other, I was just captivated. I don’t know how else to put it but in that way. It’s just beauty page after page.

Characters
We have four characters: Blanca, Roja, Page and Yearling.
Blanca is definitely the “leader” of the two sisters. She is meant to be the beautiful one, but she has a strong heart for her sister. She’s the one that would go in her sister’s place, even if that includes betrayal. I liked her character a lot, especially with Page. Page is a transboy, who uses the he/she/him/her pronoun. He’ll be referenced by either pronoun, but Anna-Marie made it easy to know who she was talking about. Page is hiding from her family because she is afraid that they won’t accept who Page really is and wants to be. Page and Blanca grow close and it’s honestly just a beautiful thing to read. I loved the way Anna-Marie shaped their relationship and it’s something totally different that I haven’t really read before, but I loved it.
Roja is what you might consider the “ugly duckling”. She is so much more different from her sister and that is what makes her Roja. She doesn’t want to be taken away by the swans, but it’s difficult for her to figure out exactly how to defy them without Blanca’s help. She definitely has a strong will, but I think it is Blanca that unintentionally helps her find that will she needs in the end. It’s also Yearling, who is meant to be a bear in the woods. His real name is Barclay, but when he is a part of the woods, he is Yearling. He has a horrible home life and is abused constantly by his cousin, which causes him to run away after he uncovers family secrets. Surprisingly, he finds the solace he needs with these two sisters that have been the subject of horrible rumors for years.
These four characters are all driven together and it’s something so unlikely that would happen. But, it all becomes something beautiful. All of them are trying to uncover who they are while also coming together. Everything just fits and becomes something incredibly beautiful that has really touched my heart.

This book was so amazing and so beautiful. The reviews lived up to my expectations and so much more. Anna-Marie knows how to knit her words together with her ideas and plots and settings. I just regret that I didn’t read this sooner. Everyone needs to read this book.

I have never been one for magical realism but dang if Anna-Marie McLemore can’t get me to read allllll the magical realism.

I can’t properly write a review for McLemore’s books. There is no way in this world that I can do her words justice because she writes so beautiful I am both in awe and extremely jealous of her ability. (And I’ve seen her write in person. She’s magical, I swear).

This story is so beautiful told with bright and vivid characters with complex motivations and thoughts. Blanca and Roja both deal with social stigmas in different ways and it’s so carefully and thoughtfully done. Not to mention how well she develops Page’s character.

My absolute favorite part of this book is the description of food, because it’s all traditional latinx food and they make your mouth water. (There’s also a scene where one of the character says that when she doesn’t know what to do with someone, she offers them food and if that’s not the most latinx thing I don’t know).

Overall, this book was beautifully written and wonderful.

Blanca & Roja is one of the best retellings I've read...in a long time. McLemore imagines Snow White and Rose-Red through a queer, Latinx lense and addresses issues such as colorism, sexism, queer and trans phobias, and ableism. No one crafts a world quite like McLemore, and her words craft a story of self-discovery, love, sacrifice and family. Beautiful.

~ARC~ provided by NetGalley~

This book started off really promising for me. It had a fairy-tale/folklore type thing going on, which I really liked - it was different. Then it started dragging and things just didn't pick up for me and unfortunately I just couldn't continue. It seems others have found this very enjoyable, so don't count it out!

I received this book on NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

I would just like to start off by saying that Anna-Marie McLemore's writing is absolutely magic. Her descriptive language just had the words jumping off the page for me, and just wove this amazing story.

I would first like to start off by saying the things I loved about this book.
I absolutely loved the writing, and found that it really elevated the book experience for me. I also enjoyed the relationships, they were both well-written and had me happy sighing.

However, a gripe that I had with the book was the shaky plot and the unstable worldbuilding.
I felt like there was not one real, clear plot and at some points (especially towards the end), it got a bit convoluted. There seemed to be one main overarching plot, and then an attempt at a slide plot that was poorly executed. I also felt like the worldbuilding was very unclear as I couldn't really understand the magic of the world and it took me a very long time to figure out what time period it was as the author didn't make it very clear.

I loved this beautifully written story. It was almost poetic in its beauty. I have not read literature like this in years and it was truly a reawakening for me in my love for reading.

Absolutely one of the best books I've read this year and a must-read for fans of Anna-Marie McLemore, fairy tale retellings, or magical realism.

Latina sisters Blanca and Roja are born into a family with a strange curse: in every generation, two sisters are born and when they become teenagers, one of them is taken by the swans, doomed to live the rest of her life as a bird. Now 15 and 17, the sisters have been trying to outsmart the curse their entire lives, taking on characteristics of the other to confuse the swans and promising to never save themselves at the other's expense. However, with a prophecy whispered only to one sister and the prospect of romance for both, the swans are circling and secrets, deceptions, desires are threatening to tear the sisters apart.

Written in McLemore's poetic prose and told among the alternating perspectives of the sisters as well as local boys Yearling and Page, who is trans, Blanca & Roja expertly balances a compelling plot with dreamlike ambiance. Themes of identity and finding one's place in the world make the story feel realistic and relatable despite the more magical elements, while romance unfolds naturally and never overwhelms the story.

The first ten percent of this book, I was all in. I enjoyed the retelling aspect of the story, I liked the magical quality of the writing, the two sister characters were intriguing, but at about the twenty percent mark, the book started to lose me.

In the beginning, I was thinking this was a five star book because I really enjoy fairy tale retellings and the story of Snow-White and Rose-Red is one of my favorite fairy tales of all time. That eventually went down to a four star because the author didn’t explain what was going on enough. Then the four star moved down to a three star when she kept repeating the same phrases over and over. Finally, my rating landed at a two star because of the lack of explanation and overuse of romance.

This plot was ridiculous. These two sisters are cursed and at some point after the youngest one turns 15, one of them will be chosen to turn into a swan. Okay. You’ve got me there. I’m on board. Then, the author brings in two random boys who end up becoming more important than the CURSE that these girls are trying to get away from.

At the beginning of the novel, I was so on board with McLemore’s writing style. Flowery, over-the-top language isn’t my first choice, but in magical realism it definitely has its place. She started to lose me when she’d say things like “the smell of his bruises” or some crap like that. Umm… excuse me? Do bruises smell? No? Exactly.

Another thing that really bothered me was how descriptive she’d be of some things but then she’d pull back when I ACTUALLY NEEDED TO KNOW WHAT WAS GOING ON. She gets really descriptive of these girls’ periods (don’t ask me why because I have no clue), but then at one point one of the boys is helping the girl with her pain and she keeps saying he’s touching her between her “hip bones” and I’m like…. what is going on here? Please tell me cause I have no clue.

Blanca is definitely my least favorite character. She lets the swans get in between her and her sister and keeps things from her sister when she shouldn’t. One of the things that caught my attention was how Blanca blends this special herb concoction for Roja because her period pains are BAD every month. Like she can’t walk or anything. If they’ve been doing this for… let’s guess three years based on their ages, how on EARTH would Blanca forget and go off with some boy when Roja needs her? Like the author makes a huge deal about these girls’ monthly cycles for Blanca to forget so easily.

Roja is a fierce gem the entire novel, but then at one point everyone just starts thinking the worst of her and she thinks she deserves it… Like…? In the goodreads summary it says Roja is manipulative. I call bull crap on that and the entire characterization of her in the summary. I never get the feeling she is manipulative. Ever. Ugh. Just the way people treat her makes me so angry.

Both of the girls get a boy, and the romance happens almost instantaneously. They say they are in love so quickly. Then one of the relationships is easily broken…he believes the worst of her without really even thinking about it. I can’t.

Overall, this book was just okay for me. My frustrations with the writing and storyline do not end here, but I thought I’d ranted enough. I truly don’t understand how some of the glaring flaws got past the editors. I was reading an advanced reader kindle copy, so maybe some of these things were caught before real publication. I sincerely hope they were because this book has so much potential.

Blanca and Roja are sisters, born to a family line cursed to have two daughters only to have one taken by los cisnes, the swans, in the chosen daughter's fifteenth year. While they were born opposites, natural rivals, they refuse to accept that one day they will be parted. Instead, the pair does everything they can to make themselves as similar as possible, hoping to confuse los cisnes. "If the swans can't tell us apart," Blanca tells her sister, "they can't decide which of us to take." When the time that a sister is usually taken has passed, Blanca and Roja start to believe they have succeeded...until, finally, the swans appear.

The sisters are left alone in their house while los cisnes decide who they will take. Roja, with her bloodred hair and sharp edges, knows it is she who will be taken, but when she is attacked while confronting the swans, a bear comes from the woods to save her. The bear, however, is not what it seems--not a bear at all, but a boy from town named Barclay, who had gone missing not long before. Suddenly the sisters find their fates entwined with those of Barclay and his best friend, Page. Will los cisnes succeed in dividing the sisters forever? Or will the bonds being built between this foursome be enough to break the spell, free the sisters, and release Barclay and Page from their own prisons?

While I did dock a star because the narrative was difficult to follow at times, overall I thought this book was amazing. The characters were well developed, and it was fascinating to read about the del Cisne family traditions and experience this fairytale from a new cultural perspective. I especially love watching Roja, Blanca, Barclay, and Page evolve after the boys come into the sisters' lives and their relationships develop. This was such a unique reading experience, and if you're a fan of fantasy, fairytale retellings, #ownvoices stories...pick this title up.

I’ve been enamored with Anna-Marie McLemore’s writing since her debut The Weight of Feathers. With each novel she has written, I have fallen even more in love, not with just her words but with her ability to weave together stories where sadness and hope, magic and reality meet as though they were two sides of the same coin. In Blanca & Roja, a novel inspired by the fairy tale Snow-White and Rose-Red, two sisters have grown up knowing that a bargain made by their ancestor means one day the los cisnes, the swans, will come to claim one of them as their own, as they have done with each generation of their family. Their love for one another has kept them from falling into the same trap sisters before them have, allowing the fear of being taken from this world to overpower their love for one another. The del Cisne girls have always been viewed by outsiders as something more akin to witches, these strange and unknowable sisters who live in the woods and whose very existence they blame whenever anything goes wrong in town. With each passing day los cisnes do not come to claim one of them, Blanca and Roja grow more confident that they have outsmarted them. But the swans are not to be cheated and when two boys disappear into the woods, they are inexplicable lured into a story that could break both them and the de Cisne sisters.

Blanca & Roja alternates between four different perspectives: the del Cisne sisters and the two boys whose stories collide with theirs. Blanca and Roja are as different as night and day. Blanca has always been viewed as the more gentle of the two, her golden hair and lighter skin have made it easier for her to move around in the world, for people to see her as otherworldly and blessed, rather than feared. She instinctively protects her younger sister, wanting to save her from being taken by los cisnes. Blanca has done her best to keep her sister close, to not allow any discord to grow between them. She’s tried to harden her edges, to make herself a little more like her sister while also helping Roja become softer, so when los cisnes comes to claim one of them, the sisters would be too much alike for the swans to lay claim to either. But her fear that Roja has already been marked as the “bad” sister leads her to decisions that will inevitably cause a rift between the two. Roja has never been an easy child. When she was younger her temper always got the better of her. Though prized by her father for her unwavering curiosity, there aren’t many others who’ve seen Roja as anything other than a foil to her sister. Unlike Blanca, Roja has all but accepted that she will be the sister taken. She knows that fairy tale stories are never about the darker of the two sisters, the one with brown skin and sharp edges. Both sisters are desperate to save the other, but secrets have a way of sowing distrust and when you grow up being told you are only allowed to be one thing while your sister is another, resentment inevitable follows.

This is as much Page Ashby and Barclay Holt’s story as it is the title characters’. Page is non-binary and has fought to claim himself in a world where everyone wants to attach one name to him and be done with it. Barclay becomes the first person to accept Page as he is, but it is Blanca who becomes the first person to ask. Page does not have a preference when it comes to pronouns, sometimes “he” feels right and sometimes “she” (McLemore uses both pronouns for Page throughout the novel), the most important thing for Page is that people don’t box him in. Page and Blanca are drawn to one another, but also doomed from the very beginning because like Roja, Page knows that people like him do not get to be princes in fairy tale stories. Barclay has grown up in a family where loyalty to your blood is placed above all else. When he ends up in the woods, he is trying to outrun the consequences of not holding fast to this mantra. He carries a secret that he isn’t quite ready to let out, lest everything he’s ever known to be true be destroyed. Unlike Page and Blanca’s relationship, Barclay and Roja are too rough around the edges to be taken with each other so readily. They navigate around each other like wounded wolves, afraid the other won’t or will make the first move.

Anna Marie McLemore’s Blanca & Roja has every element I’ve come to love about her novels. Her descriptions are lush, her storytelling skill unparalleled, and her ability to bring such nuanced characters to life keep me invested from page one.