The Strange & Beautiful Sorrows of Ava Lavender | A YA Book Review

The Strange and Beautiful Sorrows of Ava Lavender This book is a tough one for me. So I'll keep this review short because even 2 days later I'm still reeling. I stayed up til 2am even to finish it. The writing and characterization is amazing. The story is a mix of tall tale and magical realism. It's about love and lust and infatuation and how love informs our choices. It's about the light and dark sides of love. That said, the jacket flap did say that everything would come to a dark crescendo and somehow it was much more traumatic than I'd thought it would be. I think I kept hoping it wouldn't be even though there were some clues. I would like to offer the warning that the last three chapters of this book could be a trigger for victims of sexual assault, rape, or PTSD. This story has stuck to me like a gossamer web which is why I usually don't knowingly read books with traumatic events (empathy overload). I gave this book 4 stars because the storytelling was excellent.