Lark Goode and her brother live alone in their rundown house built above the river in Cutwater. Abandoned by their parents, they face the end of their senior year of school, and Lark looks to a future as far away from home as possible. Their family has been cursed since their ancestor stole tulips from Holland and planted a garden of them that lies next to their house to this day. All the Goodes become irresistible to everyone around them when the tulips bloom, and resume their lives as outcasts once the season changes. Until the last week of school, where Lark meets a boy who somehow resists her unwanted charms. 

First off, I have to say that this book is beautifully written. The prose is poetic and evocative. The story is emotional and heart-wrenching. The concept is fascinating: a family cursed for generations to be loved and yet unlovable. But there is also the incredibly fleeting nature of love and reality within the book that, rather than infusing the text with discernible lessons from the fantastical world, somehow  cheapens the story in its conclusion. It could be a love-conquers-all tale, or one about the futility and inability to pin down love, especially in one's youth. But it ends with a whimper, and left me entirely unsatisfied. 

The conclusion is still beautifully written, and akin to a fable, but the lesson doesn't take. The main character's choices lose all their weight in the final pages.

Lark choosing a fake love that she spends the entire story trying to escape makes absolutely no sense. All her ideals and protestations about how she won't accept anything else but a love she can discern for herself fall flat when she clings to the last petal.

It felt like I was cheated out of some beautiful, if not heartbreaking, lesson at the end of it. The relationship itself also proceeded so quickly that it felt unearned. Perhaps it's part of the point, that the curse wends its way through the lives of the Goodes in ways that never end. And the ambiguity could be there to punctuate that in the end, but I still feel like we never get a proper resolution.

All that said, I’m really glad I got to experience this emotive story. If you like flowing prose, an exploration of whether we determine our own fates, and are interested in the not-so-HEAs, I’d suggest trying this one!

Thank you so much to NetGalley and Simon & Schuster for providing me with a digital ARC of this book in exchange for my honest review!