3.5 stars. I thought it was an overall charming and nicely written story, but it’s not really time travel(more like just finding ways to get closure on regrets/choices?) and the characters don’t feel very fleshed out, which might be because of the short story structure—but I wish they could’ve felt a bit more distinguishable because they’d appear in other stories(because I’d sometimes mix up the characters names! They have similar tones in their dialogue)! (There is more of a consistent narrative here, the stories aren’t just strung together with a common theme.) Point is, I feel like the plot itself, as well as some of the emotional themes, really carried it, rather than the cast.

4 stars! I liked the prose and both our characters, and the narrative’s focus on bullying and being gaslit as a victim really hit me hard as a neurodivergent person(although me and Lore’s experiences differ in a multitude of ways). I also got very invested in the romance, and thought it played out beautifully for the most part! T4T relationships, yay. With that said, this book is far from being perfect. The magical realism plot gets lost in order to center Lore and Bastián’s personal issues, and as a result, the story’s focus gets muddied. I also thought Bastián’s chapters tended to get a little repetitive over the course of the book, focusing on anecdotes about struggling with their ADHD, while Lore had a more consistent arc about moving on from their past and learning to believe/side with themself. In my experience, the difference in emotional impact and subject matter when switching POVs was significantly more noticeable in the audiobook(which was on my second read).

Anna-Marie McLemore’s books have a few tropes in them, which I’ve noticed across reading six of them, and unfortunately Lakelore is not immune to that. Specifically,

the “breakup for a chapter or two because circumstances dictate we can’t be together if we want to keep our physical and/or emotional well-being intact. However, I as a/the protagonist will lie, and say the breakup is because I’ve lost or never truly had romantic feelings in order to be left alone, which my love interest will begrudgingly accept” trope. (How is it so consistent across their books?! I don’t know, but it’s been in, like..three. HALF of the books by them I’ve read, as of the time I’m writing this review.) Granted, this conflict gets resolved pretty quickly, but I still hate communication and that it had to happen with Lore and Bastián. I get that Lore didn’t want their own stuff resurfacing, in both the literal and metaphorical sense, but telling Bastián they don’t love them feels unnecessarily cruel…Ugh.

I still have this in my “four-star favorites”, though, because Lakelore is a deeply meaningful book to me. And I think it’s important, too! I like it’s representation, and the the themes it addresses. Because I could tell that in discussing Bastián’s self doubt, and Lore’s trauma, it was written from a standpoint that could only be from personal experience. In my perception as a reader, Anna-Marie McLemore writes their heart out onto the pages of most of the books they’ve published. It’s not something that is different with Lakelore. That’s something that keeps me returning to their work even with my criticisms, and a large part in my adoration of this book. Plus, this was the first one of their books I’d read. It made me fall in love with their writing.

Maybe another part of my positive bias comes from my audio reread, too. I liked the narration, and knew of both of the narrators (Avi Roque and Vico Ortiz)(Bastiàn and Lore’s chapters, respectively) from TV roles I’d come to love and find comfort in as a nonbinary person looking for solid representation. (On my Goodreads account, I even have a Lumity profile picture I drew myself!) To come back to Lakelore and realize they had some part in it when I’d already loved this book and read it a month or two prior was really cool to me! Obviously compared to some other points, it’s minor, but still neat imo.

So in conclusion, I really love this book and regard it as one of my favorites, but I understand the criticisms and why some people don’t. 

Although this ended super quickly(I was..not a fan of that lol), overall, I loved this book! Mar’s various friends and companions made for a colorful cast of characters. I actually liked the romance, maybe it was because I was listening to the audiobook as well(and it takes me 4-5x as longer to finish a book like that), but I felt that there was enough time for Bas and Mar to like..develop a hesitant alliance and then a friendship. Mar’s opinion of him didn’t totally do a 180 immediately too, he had a horrible first impression lmao 

maybe trying to both kickstart an immediate friendship and present yourself as a noble person/rescuer when someone basically died and got brought back is NOT a good idea, which, granted none of us know the dying bit until Mar realized El Diablo accidentally made them immortal at the end of the book but they KNOW THET DROWNED HAFISNFK.

But, 120 or so pages into the book there was a sweet little moment of vulnerability (Mar’s first instance of that with the La Ana crew, really) that kinda kicked things off from there in regards to those two.

Dami was so fun!! I thought one of their schemes was a little convoluted though, but other than that I absolutely ate up their moral ambiguity and snarky banter with Mar. (Color me biased though, I LOVE gender-fluid shapeshifter characters.) El Diablo, the big bad, went in with a bang and had a spectacular introduction that cemented the stakes of the story, and he remained a solid threat for basically the whole time! Probably one of my favorite YA villains I’ve read about, even if I have a couple of questions about him after the end. As for the other crew characters, not much to say about them due to limited on-page time, but I don’t have anything bad to say about them. (Tito has comforting uncle energy though I like him)

Now, onto Mar themselves! They’re in emotional pain for a lot of the book, and have a sizable amount of trauma attributed to their magic(which is just called the Spanish word for it, magía, here). That prevents them from seeking out solutions related to that. I get it. But damn I was SO annoyed at them for just. Making things drag out?! Literally half of the book would’ve never happened had they just realized they had these super powerful abilities at their disposal!! And, sure, the aforementioned Dami Scheme WAS convoluted in that somehow the rest of the La Ana crew had to be involved(more like endangered) too, but Dami’s reasoning for their plan was completely understandable imo. When they were frustrated at Mar for their hesitance I was too oh my gods. (Seriously though, when Dami was basically about to pull their hair out because of anger and stress, I was too, and started full-on laughing because it was basically my reaction. I felt seen by that! Sigh.) Anyhow. That issue aside, I loved their characterization as a transmasc non-binary protagonist. I related heavily to their feelings of gender dysphoria, and appreciated as a Spanish learner that the La Catalina crew (and some other folks who knew about Mar not being a boy but non-binary) added the “e” ending to their Spanish when referring to them. Also, little bit of a personal note but I thought it was interesting how they presented really masculine and were alright with “boy” being used as a descriptor for themselves sometimes; a lot of non-binary rep is kept strictly androgynous(well, particularly in television because books are more diverse I noticed), and as a non-binary person who also identifies as gender-fluid and uses male/masculine labels occasionally, this was yet another facet of their identity I felt truly represented by.

Magic system I’m a little on-the-fence about, to be honest, because we have some idea of how the strain on Mar limits their usage of it and it ties into the plot(I liked the added detail of them having to use their magic every 2 or so weeks because it would build up!), but they also get pretty powerful with little to no training and I wish the book was a bit longer so we could get more time to develop that. And, as the previous paragraph gave away, we didn’t get a ton of action scenes involving magic! It stilted its development, sadly, and kinda led to the sudden influx of power in the quick ending. Also, a bit spoiler-y but

I thought the magic society in Isla Mujeres I believe(?) was mentioned too little? Maybe that’s just me, though. Mar didn’t really end up going there so what’s the point in going out of your way to flesh it out, but also that’s such a major detail.

 

Oh! Speaking of the audiobook I briefly mentioned in the first paragraph, to those of you who might know of an HBO Max show called “Our Flag Means Death”, Vico Ortiz(who plays Jim) does the narration!! (This was a bit of information I was so gleeful about that until 20 or so days to “The Wicked Bargain”s release date I was in disbelief ksnfksnfo, it was so topical for them considering they’re now known for their role in the “gay pirate show”??and I loved the book summary so much.) Some of the gruffer male voices they did took a bit of warming up to(or I struggled a bit to take seriously), but I loved the different details they added in character emotion and expression. You can tell they had an absolute blast narrating because it totally shows. (Unfortunately though I learned audiobooks just aren’t my thing because I read faster than I or others speak, nothing against the narration obviously, if I wanted to listen to any one audiobook though I was gonna hold out for the actor of my favorite OFMD character.)

Anyhow, overall though I loved the hell out of this book. It had all the pirate adventure I was looking for, and it’s one of my only library books I’ve developed an intense emotional attachment to and am literally waiting right until the due date day to return. I’m not ready to say goodbye to all of these characters! I’ll write my own short little fanfiction if I so decide.

2.75 stars. The Brilliant Death was a book that captivated me with its premise, but I didn’t really enjoy it as much as I thought it would. Firstly, I found the way the story tackled gender and identity to be a mixed bag. Gender seemed to be almost intrinsically tied to sex, and with Cielo especially, there was more of an emphasis on that than expression/presentation(which made for a few uncomfortable sentences?). It felt pretty gender norm-y, which I would’ve expected from the macho, sexist dudes of the story but not in regards to the POV of our genderqueer protagonist. (To be fair though, this book was published in 2018, and the author writes under a different name now so I presume from the deadname on the cover they didn’t have as much of an understanding of gender, perhaps their own, and that impacted Teo and Cielo’s characterization.) By the end, though, there was more of a dissection/discussion of gender and I felt it improved.

Magic/power system was basically nonexistent here, too. We got a vague idea of Teo’s limitations(which were improved upon more, oddly, when they got a sort-of-power-upgrade towards the end), and I thought their abilities were silly. I can’t really take seriously a person that points a hand or finger at a foe and poof! now they’re a music box or some other fancy-schmancy object of choice. (If it actually described how a person or entity was altered by it, bit by bit, I probably would’ve been able to take it seriously.)

I was also on-the-fence about the main romance, which was a disappointment because it was actually a factor that drew me in based on what I heard of the book. It was very inta-lust(romantic feelings weren’t developed until later), and as a result I felt Cielo and Teo’s relationship moved a little too quickly until the end. But, there were some sweet moments, I’ll admit: I’m a sucker for love interests who put themselves on the line for whoever they love, and this was no exception. (Cielo was a pretty average “sarcastic, handsome dark-haired love interest” archetype though. To those who love that kind of thing, great, you will absolutely eat this up, but I’m not one of those people. To each their own.)

I also didn’t like the plot. It felt very Typical YA, there wasn’t a single twist I was surprised by and the characters overall fell very flat.

Even with its flaws, though, it was immensely enjoyable and I lost track of my pages until I reached the end and stared at my copy stunned at my progress. So…maybe it’s too harsh to call it a bad book, but don’t call it top-notch fiction either.