Blanca & Roja by Anna-Marie McLemore
Published by Feiwel & Friends on October 9, 2018
my rating: ★★★ (3 stars)
Goodreads avg: 3.80 (as of 2020-07-05)
Spoiler-free review
Goodreads | IndieBound | Author’s Website
My first read for Transathon! Anna-Marie McLemore is nonbinary and one of the main characters is a trans boy whose pronouns are both she/her and he/him.
While I enjoyed this, I wish I had liked it more! I thought that it was trying to do a little too much at once and subsequently ended up a bit scattered. The characters and their relationships really made the read worth it, but I was mainly confused about the magical realism element and felt like the ‘rules’ were kind of arbitrary. I also never felt a real sense of danger and thus wasn’t too invested in the swan aspect of the storyline. I definitely felt a lot could have been cut out of this to make it more enthralling. As a sidenote, I really liked the menstruation rep! Roja has heavy, painful periods and I appreciated their inclusion, although it also felt a bit heavy-handed at times.
Sarah Ames-Foley 
Interesting! I have seen this book going around but honestly it somehow doesn’t call my name. I’m glad to have a better idea of it now, it makes me more sure it’s not a book for me.
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take my review with a grain of salt because lots of people love it! but if it’s not calling to you, i wouldn’t worry about it. 🙂
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Great review! I’ve been curious about trying this author’s work and had heard good things about this one, but it sounds like it won’t be for me. Sorry to see you didn’t have a better time with it, but at least the characters were great! That makes me hopeful for enjoying another one of the author’s books.
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I have read all of Anna-Marie’s books and this one is not one of my favourites, either. I agree with everything you’ve written here.
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that’s good to know! i’d like to give this author another shot so if this isn’t their best work it makes me feel better.
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