“People so often knew each other
by the ways they were not the same.”
Anne-Marie McLemore’s Wild Beauty is a young adult fantasy
fiction novel on love, loss, and family.
The story is about Nomeolvides women who carry on a tragic
legacy: if they love too deeply, their lovers vanish. After generations of
vanishings, Estrella found a strange boy in the garden named Fel.
McLemore’s prose was beautifully written especially with the
figurative use of flowers and in the third person point of view through Estrella’s
and Fel’s. The story has its own magical touch that makes you want to smell the
flowers while reading.
As magical and feminine as the book may seem, it discreetly
discusses some topics that might come off easy to some readers through McLemore’s
writing. Like how someone’s color is something to take pride in, preference
over someone of the same gender is backlashed with scrutinizing eyes,
oppression of the poor by the rich with any possible measure to advance, giving
no choice to the poor than starving, how family is a stronger bond, and women being
feminine yet strong and independent as well.
“I’m not afraid of him. My mother
always says the same thing about men like that. they’re cotton candy. All puff
and show, but throw water on them and they dissolve.”
Starting off with this read might be confusing at first, especially
on the shift of scenes within a chapter. But as you go through the story it gets
easier. This is the first time I ever read a book that figuratively used
flowers in the entire course of the story. It gets kind of confusing for me
since I’m not really knowledgeable with flowers, but some flowers that I know
of helped me a bit with imagining the story. It’s really magical and gives us a
message that what might seem beautiful might not be as perfect as we think and
how one’s imperfections could be something that makes someone beautiful.
When I first saw the book cover, I really thought it was
gorgeous, up until now. Cover matches the story very well.
To be honest, I’m not totally in love with the book, but
what I love about it is the message it has given. It touches discussion not
only with love, but with family, gender, oppression, and one’s suffering behind
something beautiful.
Family and gender are interconnected in the story, wherein
one’s gender might affect family relations due to traditions or expectations
passed through the younger ones.
However, the way people love vary and its more than the
gender itself. Some of us love what we wanna see without really knowing what is
inside. Some of us might think that we are in love with someone, but its rather
being in love with what we want to see. But real love is something beyond of
what is on the surface. That beyond the ugly scars one upholds is someone worth
loving and does not equate or measure how a person should be loved less. It
actually coincides with my belief that love isn’t based on gender itself, but
the soul you see worth loving than the gender a person has.
I was waiting for more character developments with the
others but somehow it still gave different perspectives from the other
characters despite Estrella’s and Fel’s point of view.
The queerness of the Nomeolvides women also shows us that as
feminine as women may seem, they are not something men could dominate over, but
are equally smart and fierce.
The uniqueness of flowers figuratively tells us that people
are all unique and with the ground where we are currently rooted is something
we have now and that there is still so much out there for us to discover.
“Because falling in love with a
girl who feared nothing in this world had left her ready to love a boy whose
heart had been broken before she ever touched him.”
I give this book a rating of 4.0. For those who love reading
young-adult novels with a touch of fantasy, especially with a figurative prose
of writing, this is a must read.
Writer,
Thin Girl
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