"Wild Beauty" by Anna-Marie McLemore

"Love grows strange things."

For nearly a century, the Nomeolvides women have tended the grounds of La Pradera, the lush estate gardens that enchant guests from around the world. They've also hidden a tragic legacy: if they fall in love too deeply, their lovers vanish, But then, after generations of vanishings, a strange boy appears in the gardens.

The boy is a mystery to Estrella, the Nomeolvides girl who finds him, and to her family, but he's even more a mystery to himself; he knows nothing more about who he is or where he came from than his first name. As Estrella tries to help Fel piece together his unknown past, La Pradera leads them to secrets as dangerous as they are magical in this stunning exploration of love, loss and family.

"Even in its fain traces, love could alter a landscape. It wrote unimagined stories and made the most beautiful, forbidding places."

This book is so, so hard to review and assign a rating to. The writing is absolutely beautiful and (pardon the pun) flowery. The way that McLemore describes La Pradera is so realistic that I felt like I could reach out and touch the flowers. This whole book has so may quoteable moments because of how beautifully it's written. Every word feels like it was carefully chosen.

The whole beginning of the book is such a lovely entrance to a lush, gorgeous world. The world is so perfect and gorgeous.

The characters were also wonderful!

Estrella and her cousins are all queer and this is portrayed absolutely beautifully. I feel like in this situation it's best to show not tell.

"Hearts that loved boys and girls were no more reckless and easily won than any other heart. They loved who they loved. They broke how they broke."

In a world where we don't have enough queer characters and even when we get them they aren't always done right, Estrella and her cousins are a breath of fresh air. I do credit a lot of that to McLemore herself being queer and it shows why it's so essential for queer authors to write queer stories.

But no matter how lovely the writing or great the characters are, the story lacked a strong enough plot to remain interesting. Perhaps it's because I'm impatient, but towards the end of this book I struggled to maintain interest. If you enjoy slower paced books, then this is great read for you. But it just was not for me.

Rating: 3 stars