10/17/2016
As she did in The Weight of Feathers, McElmore blends magical elements with a culturally vibrant cast to create a haunting modern fairy tale. At its heart are two best friends turned lovers: Miel, a girl rumored to be born of a water tower who grows roses from her forearms, and Sam who, in keeping with the Pakistani tradition of bacha posh, has been raised as a boy, and now has no interest in living as anything but. Magic, myth, and legend are woven into the fabric of their town, and Miel and Sam’s relationship is complicated when the four Bonner sisters, who are rumored to be witches, come to believe that Miel’s roses will help restore their influence over the town’s boys. Lush, reverential language remains a hallmark of McElmore’s work, and while the story’s momentum can suffer as a result, readers interested in gender identity and the pull of family and history will find this to be an engrossing exploration of these and other powerful themes. Ages 12–up. Agent: Taylor Martindale Kean, Full Circle Literary. (Oct.)
A Kirkus Best Book of 2016
A Booklist Editor's Choice
"With luminous prose infused with Latino folklore and magical realism, this mixes fairy-tale ingredients with the elegance of a love story, with all of it rooted in a deeply real sense of humanity. Lovely, necessary, and true." —Booklist (starred)
"McLemore mesmerizes once again with a lush narrative set at the thresholds of identity, family, and devotion... Readers will be ensnared in this ethereal narrative long before they even realize the net has been cast." —Kirkus (starred)
"Readers who stick with this novel will be rewarded with a love story that is as endearingly old-fashioned as it is modern and as fantastical as it is real." —School Library Journal (starred)
"It is a story of secrets, and of speaking them, and the power of saying–and living–your truth, without fear." —Lambda Literary
"McElmore blends magical elements with a culturally vibrant cast to create a haunting modern fairy tale...Lush, reverential language remains a hallmark of McElmore’s work... Readers interested in gender identity and the pull of family and history will find this to be an engrossing exploration of these and other powerful themes." —Publishers Weekly
"McLemore’s lush writing gives way to a necessary tale of love and truth that spans across gender, sexuality, and even ethnicity—all with just a hint of magic." —Nivea Serrao for Entertainment Weekly
"You've never read a book quite like this one...The story is lush, sexy, and ethereal, making you feel like you've been enraptured by some old fairy tale that, strangely, feels completely modern at the same time." —Bustle
"One of the most delightfully unusual YA fantasy novels of the past year. There’s dark magic, deep friendship, and queer romance bound together by a lovely, well-written narrative." —Tor.com
"McLemore dances deftly across genres, uniquely weaving glistening strands of culture, myth, dream, mystery, love, and gender identity to create a tale that resonated to my core. It’s that rare kind of book that you want to read slowly, deliciously, savoring every exquisite sentence. I adored this book." —Laura Resau, Américas Award Winning Author of Red Glass and The Queen of Water
"Lushly written and surprisingly suspenseful, this magical tale is not just a love story, but a story of the secrets we keep and the lies we tell, and the courage it takes to reveal our authentic selves to each other and to the world." —Laura Ruby, Printz Award Winning-Author of Bone Gap
Ethereal and beguiling... The enchanting setup and the forbidden romance that blooms between these two outcasts will quickly draw readers in, along with the steady unspooling of the families’ history and mutual suspicions in this promising first novel. —Publishers Weekly on The Weight of Feathers
Told with skillful poetic nuances, this Romeo-and-Juliet story of forbidden love will entice fans of Maggie Stiefvater’s “Raven Cycle” who wished for a little more romance." —School Library Journal on The Weight of Feathers
A very imaginative modern-day romance akin to Romeo and Juliet and is infused with the whimsy of magical realism. —RT Book Reviews on The Weight of Feathers
Readers beguiled by the languorous language...will find themselves falling under its spell...A contemporary, magical take on an ever compelling theme. —Kirkus Reviews on The Weight of Feathers
""Scales and feathers touch and burn in McLemore’s stunning debut. The beauty of the language wraps around you, not letting go until long after the final page.”
—Jaleigh Johnson, New York Times bestselling author of The Mark of the Dragonfly and Secrets of Solace onThe Weight of Feathers
★ 08/01/2016
Gr 9 Up—Love bests every opponent in this surreal exploration of familial bonds and sexual identity. Teens Sam and Miel have been best friends for years, ever since Miel appeared, sodden and terrified, amid the flooded ground around an overturned water tower. As their friendship unfolds into romance, long-repressed secrets and rumors clamor for air. Sam is reticent and obsessed with painting moons on paper and metal. Miel and her guardian, Aracely, are thought to be witches—Miel because roses grow beautifully and painfully out of her wrist one at a time, and Aracely because she cures lovelorn townspeople with potions she creates. Until recently, the four haughty, gorgeous Bonner sisters held mysterious sway over the hearts of the town's young men. Now that their power has gone, they believe Miel's roses are the fix they need, and they have no scruples about using physical cruelty or blackmail to get what they want. Amid the ordinariness of the small-town setting, McLemore winds arabesques of magical realism. This imbues the narrative with the feel of a centuries-old fairy tale, while the theme of sexual identity gives it the utmost relevance. Some teens might be put off by the frequent descriptions of egg and pumpkin varieties and their associated shapes, colors, and uses. VERDICT Readers who stick with this novel will be rewarded with a love story that is as endearingly old-fashioned as it is modern and as fantastical as it is real.—Jennifer Prince, Buncombe County Public Libraries, NC
★ 2016-07-20
McLemore (The Weight of Feathers, 2015) mesmerizes once again with a lush narrative set at the thresholds of identity, family, and devotion.No one thinks twice about the friendship between Miel, the Latina teen who fears pumpkins and grows roses from her wrist, and Samir, the Italian-Pakistani boy who hangs his painted moons all around town and brought Miel home when she appeared from inside a water tower as a child. They are linked by their strangeness and bound to each other by their secrets—those that transgender Sam shares about his body and his name and those that Miel keeps about her family and her past. But just as the pair’s bond expands to passion, the Bonner girls, who are rumored to have the power to make anyone fall in love with them, decide that Miel’s roses are the only thing that will repair their weakening influence over others, and the four white sisters will leverage every secret that haunts Miel and that could destroy Sam to get what they want. Luxurious language infused with Spanish phrases, Latin lunar geography, and Pakistani traditions is so rich it lingers on the tongue, and the presence of magic is effortlessly woven into a web of prose that languidly unfolds to reveal the complexities of gender, culture, family, and self. Readers will be ensnared in this ethereal narrative long before they even realize the net has been cast. (Magical realism. 13-17)