FF Friday

The Nomeolvides women carry the power to make plants grow - whether they like it or not - and a curse which makes those they fall in love with disappear. When the current generation of Nomeolvides girls realize they are all falling for Bay Briar, a dapper, black-sheep scion of the family that owns La Pradera, the land which they garden, they realize they have to do something before Bay disappears too. By way of answer, La Pradera gives them Fel, a boy who doesn't remember his past, and who might have disappeared generations ago.

The writing is lush, almost fairy tale-like. However, there's a tendency to belabor already touched-on emotional points, which left me frustrated and disconnected. Some of the reveals fall flat, and one of the most significant reveals makes all the characters who had not figured it out up to that point look like idiots.

As for the characters, it's been a bit since I've read this book, so my memory's faded, and I can't help comparing it to Labyrinth Lost, which also featured a sprawling extended family of Latinas. To me, at least, the family in Labyrinth Lost was much more vividly rendered and believable. The characters in Wild Beauty are still good, they're still likable. They're just not as real. Fortunately, Bay is one of the better efforts, sharp and likable as a romantic interest. She does eventually come to return one of the cousins' feelings for her, though it's not Estrella's (the POV character.) Estrella's own romance is also likable, though it's with a boy and thus outside the purview of this comm.

On a side note, I had a hunch as I read that Bay might be better described as genderqueer rather than female, and my hunch was borne out by author's notes, but she does go by she/her pronouns, and I figure more genderqueer representation can't hurt.

To sum up: this book is pretty good on both sexuality and gender representation, but occasionally frustrating when it comes to its own narrative.