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.

“If I wanted to, I could believe it was our colors that decided Blanca would be the gentle sister, pure and obliging, and I would be the cruel one, wicked and difficult. She would be the blessed daughter, the one the swans would spare. And I would be the one the swans would take. But my sister saw our story ending another way.”

Blanca y Roja is the best retelling I’ve ever read in my entire life. The way Anna-Marie McLemore reimagined Snow-White and Rose-Red was perfection in every sense of the word. This story is so beautiful and is a bright shining star in 2018 literature, and now one of my favorite books of all-time. No one weaves words and magic like Anna-Marie, and no other book this year has impacted me the way Blanca y Roja has. Please, friends, pick this masterpiece up upon release. 

“There will always be two daughters. But we will always take one back.”

This book stars two sisters, who were born into a family where each generation of women birth two girls, one of which gets taken away by swans after her fifteenth birthday. Many sisters form a rivalry, so that the swan will pick the other one, but these sisters want to trick the swans into not knowing which one to pick, therefore, hopefully picking neither. But this story follows four people, all feeling a little out of place in their own bodies; all for very different reasons. 

➽ Blanca - Light skinned, fair hair, soft, sweet, and doing everything in her power to make sure the swans never take her sister away. 

➽ Page - A transboy, who uses he/she and him/her pronouns, and currently hiding from her family who supports that she’s trans, but can’t understand why she would still like she/her pronouns.

“Him and her, I kinda like getting called both. It’s like all of me gets seen then. Doesn’t usually happen, though. Most people can’t get their head around boy and she at the same time, I guess.”

➽ Roja - Dark skinned, hair so red it looks black, hard, angry, and doing everything in her power to make sure the swans never take her away. 

➽ Yearling - A boy who has a terrible home-life. He is constantly physically fighting with his cousin, being egged on by his entire family, and because of it he is suffering vision loss in his left eye. Content and trigger warnings for physical abuse. Yearling wants to escape his family, their last name, and a secret that he knows, and he goes into the woods wanting to be something else. And the woods listen. 

“The day I went into the woods, it was the story that chose me.”

And these four characters’ paths all cross with one another, and this becomes a story about self-discovery, unconditional love, and sacrifice. And two romances start, and they are both so equally breathtaking. All four of these characters are so expertly created that they all carved out little pieces of home in my heart. And they will live there forever. 

Like I said above, this is a reimagining of Snow-White and Rose-Red, but this is Anna-Marie’s ownvoices, Latinx, queer, magical realism version. And it is everything. Everything. This book emphasizes respecting people’s gender and sexuality journeys, because gender and sexuality can both be so very fluid. This book proves how easy, but how important, it is to ask and respect everyone’s pronouns. This book highlights how we don’t have to be what our families, our communities, our world want us to be and that we can break broken and toxic cycles. This book shows how everyone will handle pain, grief, and trauma differently and that it’s okay. This book reminds us how powerful kindness can be and how the bonds of family, both blood and found, can change every story. 

“That was the cruelest thing about the señora’s words, the truth it had left us: In my hands, the blue-eyed boy’s heart was currency enough to buy my survival. In Roja’s, it was worth nothing. And now she was the one who held it.”

And this book really is a love letter to the bonds of siblings. And not to make this review about me, but I’m very open about 1.) my brother being my best friend and 2.) me being very white passing. But my brother isn’t white passing in the slightest. Black hair, dark eyes, dark golden skin all year long. I’ve had long-term interactions with people who never knew I was Filipina until they saw my brother. And I will always acknowledge my privilege of my biraciality being white passing, but I will always love and honor my family’s culture and heritage. And like Blanca, I would give, do, and say anything to protect my little brother. Okay, I don’t want to get too sappy. But this book really is about loving all the parts of yourself; not just the physical ones that everyone can see at a glance, or the ones that everyone expect you to love. This book was perfect, but certain aspects of Blanca and certain aspects of Roja just really tugged at all my heartstrings. 

“They had seen in me the softest, weakest part of my heart where I held my sister. They knew I would do anything, give up anything, if it meant my sister keeping her own body. And now they wanted me to prove it.”

Overall, no one writes and crafts like Anna-Marie McLemore. Every book I’ve read by her has rendered me speechless. I’ve never closed a book of hers that hasn’t left me with tears streaming down my face because of its beauty. Her words have healing powers, and her books remind me why reading is magical. And her author’s note is a five star read all on its own. I don’t know what the world did to deserve Anna-Marie McLemore, but we are all truly blessed to have her stories, and I’m forever grateful.

This book was very very good! I love fairy tale retellings and this just adds to that pile of books that I love. I was never a huge fan of Snow White and had never really read Rose Red before but I’m assuming that there are liberties taken from the original stories. 
All in all the book was great. I loved the characters and the love story both family and romantic.

3.5 stars, round up to 4 since it was very beautifully written. I loved the classic feel of this book, although it was kind of a slow read. I still enjoyed this book despite some aspects that I typically don't care for. I really enjoyed the characters and their growth throughout the book, although I will admit Page had me so confused for quite a while, boy? girl? I was having a hard time figuring it out. The sisterly love was very touching and the little bits of romance was sweet.

I didn't care for the modern setting, from the description it felt like it was going to be more of a historical fantasy. It wasn't overly modern though which was really nice. The small town feel omitting the annoying slang kids use these days.

At times it was a little difficult understanding what was happening in some of the scenes, maybe needed a bit more description. On the other hand, I felt like there were just a few things that didn't seem necessary and a bit too descriptive, for example the girls monthly cycles. It's a natural thing that all women go through, but I still didn't really see the benefit of adding quite so much of it.

The point of view had me a little lost a few times. I love first person but the point of view changes so frequently it was difficult at times to remember which character I was following. 

Overall it was worth the read and I would recommend this book to anyone that enjoys modern fairy tale retelling.

Plot in a sentence: Blanca and Roja are daughters of the cursed del Cisne family: one will be transformed into a swan. They are determined to break the curse but their quest is complicated by prophecy, secrets and love.

***STARRED REVIEW***

This review is based on an ARC given to me by Macmillan. This novel is due to be released on October 9th 2018.

Recommended age: 13 and up

Diversity:

    LGBTQ+:  Page is trans and gender queer.
    Race: Blanca, Roja and their family are latinx
    Disability: Barclay is visually impaired.

Who will love this book:

    Fans of fairy tale retellings and magical realism.

What I liked about this book:

    McLemore gives us an absolutely magical twisting and melding of fairy tales (including Snow White and Rose Red and Swan Lake, among others) written in beautiful prose.
    Page is the best gender-queer transboy that I have met in fiction. His romance with Blanca is enchanting.
    Though I enjoyed the romance quite a bit, the central relationship is the one between the sisters. It is beautiful and tragic for their curse means that one must be sacrificed or sacrifice herself for the other to remain human.
    Blanca and Roja are not only struggling against their curse but against the expectations of society that try to confine them to narrow and opposing roles. Freeing themselves also means finding their true selves.
    I could go on, about Barclay/Yearling, the families, the stories of abuse, of racism, of wealth disparity, of corruption…. but this would no longer be a quick review. Suffice it to say that I loved this book.

If you liked this book, read: All the Crooked Saints by Maggie Stiefvater for more magical realism centered around a latinx family.

McLemore always writes enchanting books. Everything from the character’s vulnerabilities to their strengths, from the world building to the magical elements, all of it is spellbinding every time.
 
I feel like each time I finish one of McLemore’s books I think, “yes this is the most stunning one yet” and every time the next one proves me wrong. Time and time again, McLemore’s writing stops me in my tracks. I am awed by the sheer beauty and delicate care put into these characters and these words. From the micro to the macro, this book is exquisite. 

So the tldr of this review is, go read this book. But the long answer is that this book stuns you. The sister relationship between Blanca and Roja is tender and, at time, sharp. There’s the shadows, the curves, the hidden depths of sisterhood. At the same time thee are those moments misunderstood, decisions seen in a different light can cause a heart to break, a chasm to form, and a relationship to crumble. McLemore’s writing probes at these transitioning moments of change, in the spaces between two pairs of lips, and the unbroachable space that secrets foster. Her writing just gets me.

This was absolutely amazing.


After reading McLemore's story in Toil & Trouble, her voice and writing style lingered in my mind for days. Every time I'd log into NetGalley, I'd see the cover of Blanca & Roja, just calling to me. So I downloaded it and it was one of the best reading decisions I've made all year. Everything you've heard about this book, from the blurbs to the positive review, to the catchy "Snow-White & Rose-Red meets Swan Lake" description in the PW announcement--this book delivers. It was exactly what I wanted it to be and now it's an all-time favorite I'll definitely be reading and rereading over and over again.


If you've read anything by Anna-Marie McLemore, you know she has a very distinct writing style. It's magical. It's lyrical. Her imagery is just beautiful. This book is stuffed full of it, and I think it's her best writing to date. I especially love how everything of hers that I've read so far has been full of nature and this is no exception. The sisters' mother has an enormous, bountiful garden; they live on the edge of a magical wood; there's a cranberry farm close by; one of the main characters grew up in an apple orchard. It makes you feel like you too are this close to the magic if you only step outside.


There are four main characters: sisters Blanca and Roja, and the two boys who come out of the woods, Yearling and Page. They are all just... haunting. These are people you won't be able to stop thinking about. I felt a particular fondness for Roja, who felt almost like an underdog, the forgotten sister stuck living in Blanca's shadow. I also really loved Yearling; he was just so broken and fragile and I loved his relationship with Roja, the way they pulled each other apart and pieced each other back together. I also really, really loved Page's role in the story, the way he was a sort of anchor for both Yearling and Blanca. The friendship between all four of them got me right in the heart. Whenever they were at odds with one another it was like a sucker punch right to the gut.


Outside of how magical and perfect Blanca & Roja is, it is also the perfect example of how easy it is to be inclusive in our writing. Page is genderqueer. He uses both he and her, but just boy and never girl. And Roja, Blanca, and Yearling all just respected that. Page and Yearling's grandmothers were in a relationship. Even something as simple as Yearling asking to be called by Yearling and not his other name, something that should be easy but somehow isn't in the real world, is respected in this book. So much of this book is about identity and I can't tell you how much it meant to read a book exploring identity that wasn't upsetting and didn't rely on queer pain to do it.


Five-star reviews are so hard to write. When a book hits that all-time favorite level, it becomes so personal. There's so much emotion in why you love something this much and it's so hard to articulate. But Blanca & Roja is the perfect storm of everything I love come together in one story. Retellings and fairy tales and culture and identity and friendship and queer love and family and absolutely masterful, beautiful writing.

Name me one person who doesn’t like a good fairytale retelling. Not only is Blanca & Roja a retelling of the sisters Snow White and Rose Red, but its done through the lens of Latina sisters in a surreal, magical world with the most beautifully poetic writing. Anna-Marie McLemore’s name may sound familiar from Wild Beauty and When the Moon was Ours, and this book is no exception to her collection of lovely standalone novels. Read on for my full review! Note: I received an e-galley from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. All opinions below are my own.

Blanca & Roja is advertised as a Snow White meets Swan Lake retelling and it certainly has elements of both fairy tales, but if the book is viewed purely as a fairytale retelling, then you are ignoring much of its charm as a story simply about the bonds of sisterhood. The surrealist magic of the book- folklore intertwined with a contemporary small-town setting, could remind readers of Maggie Stiefvater’s The Raven Cycle or All The Crooked Saints. There is magic woven throughout the book, from the mystery surrounding the del Cisne sisters and the encounters with nahuale. I had to Wikipedia this- “In Mesoamerican folk religion, a nagual or nahual is a human being who has the power to transform either spiritually or physically into an animal form.” Not only is gender fluidity an important theme to this book, so is spirituality, and I just wish I had better understood was a nahuale was before going into this book because in retrospect, it would have added a lot more impact to how I connected with one of the main characters, Yearling!

IMG_1459.JPG
Before I start gushing about the diversity of the characters, I must disclaim that I am a straight, Asian American woman. Okay, now that we got that out of the way… I adored the LGBTQ representation in this book! It was treated so delicately- though it was an integral part to two of our main characters’ stories and development, it was nuanced and subtle, and their relationship developed as any romantic relationship might, without the “but is she…?” or “what if…?”s that literary LGBTQ relationships so easily get mired in. I personally thought that the fluidity of gender identity was handled really well and with sensitivity- and I can only hope that Blanca & Roja was read several times by sensitivity readers to ensure that it stands up to the expectations of LGBTQ community.

However, the plot was incredibly slow-moving and there was no sense of time or space. Each chapter felt fragmented from one another, as though they were written separately and then jammed together. Some events seemed to happen suddenly while others seemingly dragged on forever (has it only been an hour? or perhaps a week?). There was no clear sense of world-building- though McLemore’s poetic storytelling really shone with the magic and folklore of the world, she did little to ground the reader within it. Because I felt so disconnected from the world and the plot moved too slowly for my liking, I felt that the chapters dragged in the middle and focused perhaps too much the development of romantic relationships. 

Blanca & Roja was a lovely standalone novel and was three hours of my life well-spent immersed in McLemore’s wonderful prose. Thought the plot left a lot to be desired in my eyes, the tear-jerking moments between the sisters Blanca and Roja, and friends Yearling and Page, more than made up for those lapses. 

I RATE BLANCA & ROJA 4/5 STARS!
Blanca & Roja releases on October 9, 2018 and you can pre-order it now!

Not gonna lie, I struggled with this one. Not because it's not good--the writing was beautiful, the setting was atmospheric, the characters were well developed, it was diverse and dealt with modern issues in a fairy tale retelling--all of these things make it a great story. 

BUT. 

I have never been able to get into magical realism. About 30 pages in, I knew this wasn't for me. I was painfully bored. 

Anna Marie Mclemore is a fantastic writer--I'm just not the right reader. I hate that I didn't like it.

I received a copy of Blanca & Roja from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Blanca & Roja is filled with gorgeous, lush prose, tender sisterhood, and a spark of queerness. I really enjoyed it; the story tugged at my heartstrings, and was enjoyable to read. It was, however, a slow read for me because of lyrical, metaphoric way in which it is written. The writing is beautiful, but not to be quickly skimmed.

This is my first read of one of McLemore’s work, however upon finishing this book, it will certainly not be the last. The wonderful prose of the book had me hooked. The themes explored are carefully considered and expressed in ways that absolutely blew my mind. The emotion and emphasis on family is visceral throughout the story, and I nearly finished it in an entire sitting.

(As posted on Goodreads) 

This book pulled me in with its lyrical prose. The author writes in a very distinct voice that carries through each of her books I have read so far. Anna-Marie McLemore's voice is effective at creating a world of impossible realities while also fleshing out powerfully unique characters that feel very real. What I love most about Anna-Marie McLemore's writing is that it inspires a deep empathy. This story is told from multiple perspectives and I believe that is part of the reason that an empathetic connection with the characters is so well developed. 

Of her books so far, this one was my favorite! It navigates the experience of sisters who are different from each other but who also feel a deep kinship in a way I related to on a personal level. The sisters also have a complicated relationship to their heritage, which struck me as deeply honest. The fairytale upon which this story is built plays a strong role in the story throughout, but the way it changes under the influence of these characters is very satisfying and natural. 

Overall, I think Blanca & Roja is a wonderful addition to culturally and socially diverse representation in YA lit and I think many young people will enjoy it because of the author's style, which is always laced with magic, and for the rich cast of characters through whom she tells this story.

*Thanks to NetGalley for giving me the opportunity to preview this book as a librarian**

A beautiful and imaginative retelling that combines two classic fairy-tales--Snow-White and Rose-Red and Swan Lake--together in a complicated tapestry of sisterhood, love, agency, and fate. 

Blanca and Roja del Cisne have always known there would come a day when one of them would be taken by the swans. It's the family curse. There are always two sisters and one of them is always taken to become a swan while the other remains a human girl. And Roja has always known it would be her. She's coarser and meaner and darker than her fair-haired and kind-hearted sister. But Blanca and Roja are determined to undermine their fate. They spend their days trying to become more like each other so the swans won't be able to choose... but disobeying the swans comes with a cost. When two boys thought to be lost to the woods reappear they become inexorably tangled in the fates of the sisters. Will any of them be able to create a happy ending?

Where do I even begin with this book? It was so, so lovely. Anna-Marie McLemore really has a way with prose that makes the stories come alive. Fairy-tale retellings are such an interesting genre, and I especially love when the retellings do really new and interesting things, subverting the original stories they pay homage to. And Blanca and Roja certainly does that. It plays on our expectations of fairy-tale tropes and characters, complicating them in ways we don't expect and make the story even more interesting. The good girl isn't just good, the bad girl isn't just bad, and their "princes" are more lost boys than anything. It explores gender--something often left rather binary in traditional fairy-tales--and cultural identity and racism. I really loved all the new elements as well as all the original fairy-tale threads and the ways in which McLemore tied them together.  

One of the most interesting and complicated aspects of the book is the relationship between Blanca and Roja. They simultaneously love and envy each other and are pitted against each other by fate--quite literally. They try to fight back against the curse, but it ultimately seems to make things worse. They make bad, selfish choices--and some bad, selfless ones as well--but in the end their love for each other trumps everything else. I really love that, and the fact that they are allowed to be so different from each other without villainizing either for their differences.

I really only have positive things to say about this one. I thoroughly enjoyed it, and I'm definitely going to have to finally get around to reading McLemore's other books now.

Look, no one writes magical realism for young adults better than Anna-Marie McLemore and this book is no exception. She creates a world you feel fully immersed in, despite the fantasy elements. Her characters are complex and stand out from each other. In this book, she uses fairy tales as framework of her story in a way I've never seen another author do, making those stories an integral part of the novel, while simultaneously pushing back against them. Her writing is gorgeous and atmospheric, and I'm pretty sure I'll read anything she writes and enjoy it.

This is the second book by Ms. McLemore and I didn't care for this book as much as Wild Beauty. Blanca & Roja tells the story of the DelCisne girls, similar to Wild Beauty, a family of Latinas with a cursed past. The women of the Del Cisne family are destined for one of two sisters to become a swan. Blanca and Roja del Cisne are sisters trying to protect each other from a fate of bird-dom. For me, I found it hard to care for either of the characters, Blanca's benevolence and Roja's feelings for rejection. McLemore's style of magical realism tries to lure readers into the tale, but I just felt tangled and yanked along for the ride.

Anna-Marie McLemore has done it again. This was just as breathtaking as her previous books and I love the lesson imbedded inside. I haven't come across a book by Anna-Marie I haven't loved nor that hasn't resonated with me in some way. 

I love all of the nods to Latinx culture that I get to see and I get to learn about. I knew little to nothing about their culture, save for Day of the Dead, before I began reading her books but now I have a new look into their traditions and culture. The queer rep that is in their books is breathtaking. We get to see queer rep across all different kinds of people, stories, and backgrounds. This makes me feel more like I belong and gives me new stories and people to look up to. She has explored many different kinds of queer rep and has done it beautifully. Each one seems so telling and truthful. 

At first, I wasn't sold on the four POVS but I quickly grew to love it. This shows us each of the most important sides to this story. It shows us how everyone is truly feeling and what they would give up for each other. We've got two extremely strong sisters who would give up anything for each other, fighting a destiny that they didn't want along with two boys trying to find their place in the world when they don't want to be anything that they're supposed to be. 

I loved that the forest, apart from the swans, was the magical realism element of this story. The added fairytales besides Snow-White and Ruby-Red added both to story and to my knowledge of fairy tales. Every detail and word in the story had a specific purpose. The language was lyric and lavish. Sometimes the things that were happening didn't make sense, but that's the beauty of magical realism. It takes the world we live in and how we think it operates and turns it upside down. It shows us possibilities we never could have even thought of. It also shows us the magic we ignore that happens everyday in our world. 

Blanca & Roja is a story of two sisters, learning to be who they are and not who they are supposed to be. It's a story of strong women doing anything and everything for the people they love.

This book will make you yearn for and be fearful of a world with just a little bit more magic. A tale of sisters, of love, of family—blood and otherwise. 


You need this book, and all the rest of McLemore’s work.