This book's shining strength is in the atmosphere: a friendly little island that always smells of salt and magic, and one particular family that lives there. It brims with feminine energy (kind of like if Amanda Lovelace's Women Are Some Kind of Magic was transposed into a novel) and the whole thing just feels like a comforting, healing hug from the older sister you always wanted. Which is fitting, since this book revolves around a pair of twin sisters, their coming-of-age and their changing relationship. Georgia is fantastically relatable, and her narration has a timeless straightforwardness. (I also love her dry sense of humor, juxtaposed against the quiet wonder pervading the island and her family's gifts.)

All that said, the plot almost feels like an afterthought, a kind of meander to find the answer then wham-bam-reveal-climax-resolution. Believable, yes; a little abrupt, also yes. (And looking at the page count for this book, I do think it could've been longer.) But I've always said that a good enough writer could interest me in a novel where all the characters do is watch paint dry, and Leno has that level of mastery.

content warnings: 

underage drinking & weed use, loss of parent (in infancy), animal (bird) death, off-page rape, attempted murder, self-defense manslaughter

rep: 

lesbian MC, bi/pan love interest, F/F romance, ace secondary character