The overall feeling of this book was very comforting to me, it’s hard to describe. The magical realism elements and the Latinx characters in this book tug at something deeply familiar for me from my feelings of heritage. This is also an immigrant story, which I appreciate highly and also feel connected to. The imagery is incredible.

I loved the way this book switched perspectives and told this story through the eyes of the two protagonists. I’ll admit that I just absolutely fell in love with Fel, so I was always excited to get to his chapters. Estrella and her family felt so familiar for me growing up with my cousins and I enjoyed her journey with her and the land’s magic.

I also loved Estrella’s internal conversations about bisexuality and what her and her cousin’s sexuality meant. (Can I just say it? I love that we have a bisexual woman character who is aware of her bisexuality and falls in love with a man?? I think with bisexual characters, the narrative is often that they are straight until proven queer and then it’s like “oh, I’m bi” to explain previous relationships, but I want to see openly bi people in all kinds of relationships, okay?)

I also have to give a shout-out to Bay, who was so seamlessly weaved in as a gender-queer character. The narrative of Fel and his relationship with his brother was also compelling and well done. This book manages to be super queer in a way that feels organic and right for the ambiguous time periods and settings.

I’m really excited to read more from this author!