Book Review: The Strange and Beautiful Sorrows of Ava Lavender by Leslye Walton

A very quick DNF:

Title: The Strange and Beautiful Sorrows of Ava Lavender
Author: Leslye Walton
Published: Massachusetts: Candlewick Press, 2014
Rating: N/A
Page Count: 30 of 300
Total Page Count: 178,045
Text Number: 523
Read Because: numerous BookTube recommendations, ebook borrowed from the Multnomah County Library
Review: Ava Lavender was born with wings, and in her attempt to discover why she researches and records her family's long history of magic and heartbreak. This is reminiscent of the novels of Alice Hoffman: whimsical and bittersweet magical realism with a focus on families, a combination that offers frothy magical elements and overdrawn, almost archetypal characterization. This style simply isn't for me, and I put the book down at around 30 pages.

Book Review: The Tale of a No-Name Squirrel by Radhika R. Dhariwal

Title: The Tale of a No-Name Squirrel (The PetPost Secret)
Author: Radhika R. Dhariwal
Illustrator: Audrey Benjaminsen
Published: New York: Simon & Schuster, 2016 (2014)
Rating: 3 of 5
Page Count: 380
Total Page Count: 178,425
Text Number: 524
Read Because: book sent to me by author in exchange for an honest review
Review: Squirrel has been a slave his entire life—but when he unearths a hidden memory, he begins a quest to free all slaves, forever. There was a point in reading Grahame's The Wind in the Willows when I had to stop ask myself: is this a man-sized toad with a full head of hair riding a horse? (I'm still only approximately certain that the answer is yes.) The Tale of a No-Name Squirrel is suffused with that same playful but immersion-breaking confusion, because these anthropomorphic animals are particularly ill-defined (the squirrel has blushing cheeks, a dog marries a cat) and a similar humor pervades the text, filling it with puns and strange bits of worldbuilding. This doesn't always mesh well with the darker elements, but it makes for lively pacing and consistent readability. Squirrel's tale is primarily a travelogue, and the overarching plot is hampered by flat supporting characters and an abundance of coincidence—but Squirrel's character growth is rewarding. This is a frivolous, exuberant novel; too silly for me, but readers who appreciate humor should have better luck.

My ARC had some incomplete and missing illustrations, but what I saw of the art is lovely—if not quite as silly as the text.

Book Review: The Beauty by Aliya Whiteley

Title: The Beauty
Author: Aliya Whiteley
Published: London: Unsung Stories, 2014
Rating: 4 of 5
Page Count: 100
Total Page Count: 178,525
Text Number: 525
Read Because: reviewed by BookishThoughts, ebook borrowed from the Multnomah County Library
Review: All the women of the world are dead, and the men of the Group face a bleak future. And then the graves of the dead women begin to sprout mushrooms that grow into human shape. The Beauty is a strange little book, intentionally so. Whiteley's voice is sparse, almost distant; she slides from dream into nightmare, the atmosphere hazy but the speculative elements growing increasingly grotesque and detailed. The obvious metaphor is gender: its determining factors, the function of gender roles in heteronormative relationships, the relationship between gender and procreation. It leans gender essentialist, and there's something circumspect about eliding horror and ( small spoiler )

. But it's also complex, intimate, and cast in compelling speculative terms. It's not a flawless effort, but I admire how far Whiteley takes such a short work.