1.5 stars

It took me almost a month to read this, a book I would ultimately call easy to read. Whenever I psyched myself up to read it, I would definitely feel I was making easy progress through the story, and can see why some people would get lost in the whimsy contained in these relatively few pages and enjoy the experience.

I, ultimately, did not. I'm giving in 1.5 stars because I give everything I read at least a one star rating. Compared with the bottom of the barrel, this was better. It contained a level of skill that distinguished it from the worst things I read this year, so my 1.5 is comparative. 2 stars is "it was okay," but I'm not entirely sure that this was, in fact, okay.

I'll explore in more details in a video review what went wrong for me here. I'll admit that this was starting with a giant side-eye. As background, I really enjoyed Maggie as a speaker when I saw her at Nerdcon: Stories. I enjoyed most of the first couple of books in the Raven Cycle. Things started to go a little sour for me because of some of her comments on social media and then with the announcement of this book, often called "magical realism" (pfft) and about a town hilariously named Bicho Raro.

BICHO RARO.

But all that, you know. So, as I said, I went into this already having chalked up negative points against it. Whether fair or not, we all walk into works of fiction with our experiences and biases and that's the way the cookie crumbles. What I found in Maggie's tale of a Mexican family living in Colorado and performing miracles wasn't overtly offensive that I noticed (I am a Latina, but not Mexican) but it was hollow. It's difficult to explain the ways that this story lacked life in the details that comprised the family at the heart of it. From the translations of certain phrases, to the nicknames of some of the characters, to the way that the context of being a Mexican family in Colorado during that time period is all but missing, or else very briefly alluded to in an (to repeat myself) empty way. At the end of the day, Stiefvater has written a story about a Latino family as mystical minorities, performing miracles on mostly white people to rid them of darkness. She's written characters she can only know tangentially and to me, it showed. Whether or not she can or should write these character is not an argument for this review. My only point right now is that she created something that I think rang a little false to me.

And that's just kind of the out-of-the-gate representation, which everyone will have their own impassioned takes on. The worst thing to me is that this was a hollow approximation of "magical realism" (fabulism) in terms of plot, setting and characters. That is not to say that people will not enjoy this. It's just that I enjoy my fabulism when it's a little less spaghetti-throw-against-a-wall. I enjoy it when there is subtle meaning woven through the fantastical elements. I like it when you don't have to name the town (what is arguably) Oddball because GEDDIT?

Stiefvater gave a lot of style and very little substance. Everything felt half-formed. There was so little plot that it became work to drag myself through the random bits of descriptions and backstory and strange pieces of ~~~whimsy that litter an already short book. There are a few relationships that try to support the action and motivation, but they exist when we start the story and we don't get enough of a feeling of how or why they developed for me to feel invested.

Not for me in the least. There are so many other places you can find rich magical realism, meaningful fabulism, and even if what you wanted was twee whimsy, there is better of that out there as well.