So, this is going to be unpopular opinion time. I see people are either absolutely loving this book and giving it 5 stars, or DNFing and giving it one or two. I definitely didn’t HATE this book. However, I understand why some people wouldn’t be able to get through all the purple prose.

What I liked:

1. That cover! 10/10 possibly one of the prettiest covers ever. I also like the forest green and gold lettering of the naked hardback. Very beautiful.

2. The ending. I thought the reveal at the end was interesting. It didn’t blow my mind...but it held my interest.

3. Diversity. All of the cousins are bisexual, and one of the male characters is gay. They are also of Latino descent.

What I didn’t like:

1. Too much unnecessary description. I love lyrical writing. But there was so much flowery (pun intended) nonsense cluttering up this book. It became incredibly repetitive. The author would state something and then go and spend multiple paragraphs describing and explaining the statement. Then she would state it again, and then have a couple more paragraphs of description. One major example of this happens at the end and would be a big spoiler, so I don’t really want to be specific. But it would be like a writer saying, “The dog was asleep.” And then spending two paragraphs telling you exactly how the dog was sleeping and where she was lying down and what color the dog was while it was lying in the sun and what it was dreaming about and so on. And then the author essentially repeats herself and says, “The dog was napping.” And then two paragraphs on how everyone around the dog perceives it...about 50 pages could’ve been shaved off this book just by cutting out all the repetitive description.

Seriously, I don’t need to be told about all the different flowers in EVERY. SINGLE. SCENE. It’s just too much. And it’s really too bad because there are really some beautiful passages in this book that I feel get a little lost under the weight of all the purple prose.

2. Character development. I feel like I didn’t really know any of these characters that well. I actually thought Fel was the most complete, complex character, and he had amnesia most of this book. Estrella was okay, but if I’m being honest, the only reason I was able to differentiate her from her cousins is because it’s her POV we are following.

I also thought Bay had some interesting moments, but I spent so much of the novel being annoyed by her and the way all of the cousins fawned over her that I almost didn’t care. We don’t actually learn much about her until the very end of the book, and by then it’s too little, too late.

3. Unhealthy relationships. I didn’t like how co-dependent the cousins’ were with each other. It is mentioned a couple of times that other people see them as interchangeable, which as I said before, I do too. However, that is the fault of the author for not giving them unique personalities.
But in this case, that’s not what I am referring too. They all get very territorial over one another, especially when it concerns love interests. At one point, Fel mentions that the cousins are ‘marking one another’ and it felt like that kind of possessiveness was prevalent throughout the book.
Also, I did not understand why all the cousins were so twitterpated by Bay. And again, that’s the fault of the author for not developing her enough. She was the quintessential Mary Sue. All I knew about her was she had pretty hair that she wore in a braid...and I’m out. But in their eyes she’s perfection and they’re all obsessed. It was annoying.

4. ‘Plot’. There is not much in the way of plot in this book. Now, I am not someone who needs a super plot-heavy story. However, in that case I expect a very character-driven narrative. That was not the case here. I found myself getting distracted by all the flowery writing and losing any threads of plot in this story, to the point that I would backtrack and actually read out loud so I could figure out what was actually happening.

5. World-building. I understand that this is a magical realism, and that exact time period doesn’t really matter, because it’s all about the characters and magical elements. Unfortunately, I didn’t care for the characters enough to get lost in this story, so I kept thinking, “When is this supposed to take place? Where is this supposed to take place? Did I miss a sentence somewhere that said this was Texas or California or something?” The most technologically advanced thing references in this book is a car, but that doesn’t really narrow it down much. Estrella and Fel make one trip to town in the book, and that seemed to be the only part where the author was like, “Nah, I don’t need to describe this stuff. Everybody knows what a town looks like! Let’s get back to the garden and talk about ALL THE FLOWERS AGAIN!”

I will say that I was curious enough about the origin of this so-called ‘curse’ that I continued reading. I wanted to see if they’d be able to break it. And since the ending was the best part for me, I guess I’m glad I finished it. I really want to read Anna-Marie McLemore’s other works. I’m really hoping I love them as much as others do. I wish I could’ve loved this one too.