Miss Elvira Reads: BOOK REVIEW | THE STRANGE AND BEAUTIFUL SORROWS OF AVA LAVENDER BY LESLYE WALTON

“I found it ironic that I should be blessed with wings and yet feel so constrained, so trapped. It was because of my condition, I believe, that I noticed life’s ironies a bit more often than the average person. I collected them: how love arrived when you least expected it, how someone who said he didn’t want to hurt you eventually would.”

- Leslye Walton (The Strange and Beautiful Sorrows of Ava Lavender)

Title: The Strange and Beautiful Sorrows of Ava Lavender
Author: Leslye Walton
Genre: Magical Realism / Young Adult
Pages: 301
Publisher: Candlewick Press
Release Date: March 2014
Format: Hardcover
ISBN: 9780763665661
Rating: ★★★★★

Synopsis

Foolish love appears to be the Roux family birthright, an ominous forecast for its most recent progeny, Ava Lavender. Ava—in all other ways a normal girl—is born with the wings of a bird.

In a quest to understand her peculiar disposition and a growing desire to fit in with her peers, sixteen-year old Ava ventures into the wider world, ill-prepared for what she might discover and naïve to the twisted motives of others. Others like the pious Nathaniel Sorrows, who mistakes Ava for an angel and whose obsession with her grows until the night of the Summer Solstice celebration.

That night, the skies open up, rain and feathers fill the air, and Ava’s quest and her family’s saga build to a devastating crescendo.

First-time author Leslye Walton has constructed a layered and unforgettable mythology of what it means to be born with hearts that are tragically, exquisitely human.

My Review

This story was a magical journey of a girl named Ava Lavender, she was born with wings. Some thought her an angel and others, didn’t really know what to think. This book was about love, heartbreak, loss and survival. The main characters are Ava Lavender, her mother Viviane Lavender and her grandmother Emilienne Lavender. It’s best described as a dark fairytale. Ava introduces this book as her family history that needed to be told to explain the way she has grown up and how she has survived in this world as a girl with wings. The women in this family are essentially cursed when it comes to love, but that’s what drives them. The love for men, love for each other and for their family. This young woman, born with wings, spent her life in the confinement of a home perched on a hill. She could see the outside world living their lives amongst each other and there she was stuck inside. As a teenager, you want to explore and the story really gets interesting when she starts to expose herself to the outside world.

This book was beautiful! The author really experimented with magical realism, just enough to keep this fairytale like story going and just enough realism to actually experience it in our minds. This is Leslye Walton’s debut book, and wow… I can’t wait to see what else she has in store for us. This story is gracefully written. I couldn’t put it down. It’s sad, but you feel the strength of the characters and you feel proud almost. Proud of what they have overcome, proud of what they deal with on a daily basis. You fall in love with the story, it’s beautiful.

I recommend this book to everyone. You will love it. Anyone at any age who still feels youth within themselves, anyone who remembers those teenage years and anyone who appreciates their family history. It’s such a very well written story.

It’s a hopeful and graceful story. It captures your heart and mind and takes you on a journey with a family who has the worst luck, but doesn’t know any other way. A Dark fairytale that is completely relevant. GO READ IT!

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