“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!

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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!

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.

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.

I will read anything Anna-Marie McLemore writes; she just has such a beautiful way with words I fall head over heels in love with her stories every time. I loved her look at the complicated relationship between siblings - Blanca and Roja are each such wonderful, complex characters and I rooted for them both. My heart broke for them as they struggled with their family's curse. Wild Beauty is still my favorite of her works, but this one holds a special place in my heart. This was such a lovely fairytale.

One sentence plot summary: Blanca & Roja, a modern reimagining of the classic fairytale "Snow White and Rose Red," tells the story of a family, plagued by a generations old curse.



I haven't been reading a lot of fantasy lately, but boy and I'm happy I picked this up. I'm not even sure that I would classify it as fantasy: there are supernatural elements, but I would consider it more magical realism than fantasy. Either way, without splitting hairs, this was the most breathtaking book I've read in a long time.



For me, Roja drives this story. She's hard not to fall in love with: she's complicated, insecure, gets most things a little bit wrong, and sees the worst in most people, but she's also introspective, a bit fearless, loyal, and sharp. She is the opposite of a fairy tale character (but small spoiler: not the opposite of Blanca, no matter how much she sees herself to be), neither villain nor heroine. Those things are kind of a given with any good novel and any developed character, but something about the way it drives this tale makes it a little more special.



This is a fairy tale. And a family drama. And a love story. A really, really pretty love story. It's at once full of passion, but also innocent. Most of all, though, I think this is the story of finding your place in the world. It tackles issues like gender and race without ever making them feel politicized or like anything more than a small part of who a character is. To me, though, the theme that really drives this novel was finding who you are outside your family. As you can probably tell from the title, Blanca & Roja, the two sisters who are under threat from the curse, are at the center of things and as much as it's a fairy tale and love story, it's a story of finding out who blanca is without Roja and vice versa. As Roja reflects: without the glow iff her, no one ever saw me. Without her, there was no me. Snow-white on her own was still her own fairy tale, but Rose-Red, alone, was only half a story (McLemore).



I enjoyed reading Roja's struggles to find herself apart from Blanca and, even though this book switched between four perspectives (Blanca, Roja, Page, and Yearling), I couldn't help it feel it was more ROja's story than anyone else's. The others had beautifully written passages and were great characters, but part of me felt that they were less intertwined characters than people who contributed to the narrative of Roja's coming of age. Maybe that's unfair or reflects my own bias in ROja's favor, but there it is.



This was my favorite read of the year and, while it's only July, I can't see it getting much better. The writing was lyrical and poetic, the characters well developed, and who doesn't freaking love a fairy tale?



5/5.



Thank you to Net Galley and the publishers for the ARC I received in exchange for a fair and honest review.

I love everything Anna-Marie McLemore writes. Her style is so beautiful and lyrical; it's a treat to read her books. I've been eager to read this one since she announced it: a queer, Latina retelling of Snow White & Rose Red?? SIGN ME UPPP. I really loved this book, particularly the development of the various relationships (both romantic and not) between the characters.

Anna-Marie McLemore is one of my favorite authors. Her characters are always diverse, her writing is incredible, and she is the queen of magical realism. This book lived up to my expectations based on her other books. The setting was beautifully described, the characters were all multi-dimensional, the ending was satisfying, and the story was creative. I strongly recommend this book to anyone who likes magical realism, retellings, unconventional romance, and beautiful writing. I will definitely be ordering this for my library!

Anna-Marie McLemore has the most beautifully lyrical writing style of any author I've ever read. Her stories have such a dreamlike quality that was only increased in this book with the fairy tale retelling. I have purchased each of her titles for my library, and this title will be no exception. I loved every page of it!

I don’t know why, but I never been a big fan of stories with multiple characters point of view. Even when it’s two people I’m always really hesitant about reading it because it's a hit or miss for me. When I heard about this book, I knew there was a chance that it would be told in first person by Blanca and Roja. I was prepared going into it to be that way, but since it was McLemore, I thought it would be fine. There are a couple other characters as well who tell the story through their eyes and I didn’t know what I had just signed up for.

It was fine. It didn’t bother me like it had in the past, but it wasn’t my favorite either. I’ve been a fan of McLemore’s writing for a while now and I didn’t want the multiple points of view to stop me from enjoying the story. The book itself sounded magical and I was excited to read it, but I wanted to know so much about Blanca and Roja that whenever it wasn’t their story, I just wanted to get through it. I feel like this book was so focused on the magic part of it, that it kind of lost a little bit of focus on everything else.

While I did enjoy the characters, I just wished it would have been written through one person's point of view or third. I just couldn’t get over the fact no matter how hard I tried. Overall, it was a good book and I really liked the idea, I just wanted a little more from it.