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A review by gabalodon
Blanca & Roja by Anna-Marie McLemore
3.0
I think this book could easily have been a four star read for someone just a little less fussy about magic rules than I am. There were a lot of logical leaps that characters made about what the rules were of the supernatural shenanigans going down and they were apparently correct leaps but how? Why? What are the rules?? How do they know the rules??
In that sense and in others, this book leaned very heavily into the aesthetic - which by all means was very beautiful and delicate - but it was often, imo, at the expense of developing character personalities and weaving the plot together coherently. I liked the four different POVs, but every time a chapter ended there would be an abrupt shift in setting and we'd be addressing a different plot point or different character tension, and since each chapter is only a couple pages, it impacted the flow of the story itself. Characters would show up where it was convenient for the aesthetic and to move the plot forward but their reasons for bouncing around so much seemed somewhat flimsy. There was also a lot of repetition in the phrasing and imagery. So overall, a lot of frosting and not enough cake.
That all being said, the frosting itself was very good. The underlying story had a lot of promise and the imagery was gorgeous, and the parallels between the characters and the exploration of genderqueer themes and colorism were extremely poignant. I just wish everything else going on in the plot made more sense, or even that it made as little sense to the characters as it did to me.
In that sense and in others, this book leaned very heavily into the aesthetic - which by all means was very beautiful and delicate - but it was often, imo, at the expense of developing character personalities and weaving the plot together coherently. I liked the four different POVs, but every time a chapter ended there would be an abrupt shift in setting and we'd be addressing a different plot point or different character tension, and since each chapter is only a couple pages, it impacted the flow of the story itself. Characters would show up where it was convenient for the aesthetic and to move the plot forward but their reasons for bouncing around so much seemed somewhat flimsy. There was also a lot of repetition in the phrasing and imagery. So overall, a lot of frosting and not enough cake.
That all being said, the frosting itself was very good. The underlying story had a lot of promise and the imagery was gorgeous, and the parallels between the characters and the exploration of genderqueer themes and colorism were extremely poignant. I just wish everything else going on in the plot made more sense, or even that it made as little sense to the characters as it did to me.