Reasons This Needs to Be on Your Shelf:
- It’s inspired by the Hans Christian Andersen’s The Snow Queen
- The protagonist is a pastelería witch (all the baked goods descriptions will make you salivate)
- It’s a tender yet brutally honest look at trauma after assault
- There are penis mushrooms in this (that will become an inside joke for the people who’ve read the book, I can already tell)
- The cover is as hauntingly beautiful as the actual story
Review:
“It’s not too late for any of us.
We survived.
Now we can live.”
Have you ever made it through an entire book without crying only to then lose it during the acknowledgments section? Because that’s what happened to me while reading The Mirror Season. This story is not one you can easily stomach since it follows two teens who, after learning that they have both been assaulted at the same party, strike up an unlikely friendship and help each other deal with the trauma they’ve both experienced.
As the story unravels and we learn more about the night that changed Ciela and Lock forever, the two of them also grow closer together and I love how there is a lot of focus on consent and respect between them. Both Ciela and Lock are trying to heal from what happened and it was interesting to see how Ciela’s coping mechanisms vary from Lock’s and what that means in terms of reliable narration. There are times where Ciela ‘slips up’ and as the reader, you are left wondering what she isn’t telling you. Ciela also struggles to keep what happened to her from her family and friends, especially since shards of silver mirror glass appear at certain places in her house, the school, the bakery and even in other characters, such as the corner of Lock’s eye. While she does everything to keep her loved ones from ‘finding’ these shattered pieces, they won’t stop appearing, adding another layer of tension to the novel. Despite the difficult subject matter, there are moments of levity and fun between Ciela and Lock that were so endearing and their chemistry is undeniable.
McLemore also takes care to talk about society’s stance on sexual assault based on gender and race. Whereas Ciela does not want to come forward because she knows she will never stand a chance against her assaulters because she is brown and queer while they are cis white and their parents practically rule the town Ciela lives in, Lock doesn’t want to report his assault because he is aware of the double standard where men are told that they have nothing to complain about since they got something out of it and that he will probably be blamed for not being careful enough looking after his drink that got drugged. It was as frustrating as it was sobering to hear their compelling arguments for why they keep that fateful night a secret – that this is exactly what the world does to survivors – keeping them from coming forward by placing shame, guilt and blame in the wrong places. While it was hard to read, it struck me as incredibly realistic.
Ciela talking about her queerness were some of my favourite moments in this magnificent book. Ciela’s narrow-minded classmates think she is a lesbian because she used to have a girlfriend, which they like to make fun of quite a lot – it doesn’t even cross their minds that there may be more than the two identities they know: straight and gay. Yet Ciela makes it known to the reader that she loves regardless of someone’s gender or given sex at birth, that she loves people for their character, not their body parts. Even though she is hassled, Ciela never lets herself be undermined in this regard, she is fiercely confident in her sexual orientation and I think that will resonate with a lot of readers. To be so unapologetically you, despite people trying to tear you down is definitely one of Ciela’s secret strengths.
The magical elements in this story were interwoven so seamlessly. I usually have a hard time with magical realism (suspension of disbelief is not my strong suit) so I was hesitant but Ciela’s ‘magical’ abilities played so well off the plot that I was enamoured from the get-go. Ciela is a pastelería witch, which means that she can tell what pastry is the one the customer most desires and needs based on a feeling she gets – an ability she has inherited from her grandmother. Ciela sells pastries that will lend customers the confidence they need, the strength they want to emulate and the compassion they perhaps are giving everyone but themselves. It was such a profound magic that it left me wondering what would be Ciela’s personal ‘saving pastry’.
All I can say is that, if you can handle the subject matter, then this is a must-read for you. Every once in a while a book comes along where I want to hug the author after reading, not just because I loved the story, but because I want to both apologise and thank them for going through the painful journey to bring readers a book so important, it will stay with them forever. And this is one of those books.
Lending assault survivors strength and compassion, The Mirror Season is a compulsively readable YA novel with haunting prose, heartbreaking moments, and a reminder to be kind to yourself, always.
The Mirror Season is available from Amazon, Book Depository, and other good book retailers, like your local bookstore, as of March 16th 2021.
Will you be picking up The Mirror Season? Tell us in the comments below!
Synopsis | Goodreads
When two teens discover that they were both sexually assaulted at the same party, they develop a cautious friendship through her family’s possibly-magical pastelería, his secret forest of otherworldly trees, and the swallows returning to their hometown, in Anna-Marie McLemore’s The Mirror Season…
Graciela Cristales’ whole world changes after she and a boy she barely knows are assaulted at the same party. She loses her gift for making enchanted pan dulce. Neighborhood trees vanish overnight, while mirrored glass appears, bringing reckless magic with it. And Ciela is haunted by what happened to her, and what happened to the boy whose name she never learned.
But when the boy, Lock, shows up at Ciela’s school, he has no memory of that night, and no clue that a single piece of mirrored glass is taking his life apart. Ciela decides to help him, which means hiding the truth about that night. Because Ciela knows who assaulted her, and him. And she knows that her survival, and his, depend on no one finding out what really happened.
