Access Today The Orchid Sister Brought To You By Anne D. LeClaire Accessible In Kindle
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Warning: the entirety of this review contains spoilers
Writing a book about pregnant brown women pregnant brown teens! being forced to abort their babies so the fetuses might be used to rejuvenate white women is never a good idea.
Its most certainly not a story a white woman should write,
Lets go by parts, The book is told from multiple perspectives, with the main ones being Maddies and Kats, The supporting cast consists of multiple Mexican characters, and I swear I wanted to pull out my hair every time I started reading one of their chapters.
The “Spanglish” in which its narrated was incredibly irritating and distracting, it severely ruined the prose in my opinion, because it was pointless and added nothing to the characters saying “calle” or saying “street” is the same, saying “padre” and saying “father” is the same, saying “cerveza” and saying “beer” is the same, et cetera.
Adding the words doesnt make the characters any more Latino than they already are and neither does their exotification and their obsession with mysticism.
As a matter of fact, that only adds to the pile of alreadythere offensive stereotypes: cheating men, “temptress” women, “magical” old ladies, and characters with visions to the past in which the protagonists are being sacrificed to the gods.
Nothing I, as a Latina woman, appreciate,
I dont appreciate the main characters, either, They are meant to be women with careers, smart and sharp, yet they are so incredibly dumb its mindblowing, An example: when Madison realizes Kat has gone missing and calls the police, she lies to them about having talked with Kats doctor.
When she finds evidence that her sister might be having drug problems, she hides it and keeps it to herself, She ditches Jack in Mexico to go look into the mysterious spaslashclinic that the cab driver is too scared to see and she goes without any way of communicating with the outside world.
And not just Maddie, oh, no, Kat is just as bad, Going back to get the treatment thats aging her instead of making her look younger, blindly trusting the shady doctor with armed guards outside of his spa, ruining her first chance at escape by swallowing the pill she couldve hidden in her mouth as she did later, once the chance had been thrown away, not telling absolutely anyone where she was going Do I need to
go on Most of the problems these people have wouldve been easily fixed if they had just talked to each other.
Frankly, the best thing about this book is the bond between the sisters, It was made believable, they obviously loved each other and I really appreciate that, I just wish the Mexico plot and characters had been better handled, because that way this would have been a completely different story.
Thank you to the publisher for giving me a free ARC in exchange for a honest review.
All thoughts expressed here are my own, The bond between the two sisters, Madison and Kat, was a powerful one, Since the death of their parents years before in a plane crash, they were the only family that remained, Given this attachment, it made sense that Madison would become alarmed at her sister's extended absence, Unfortunately, there were other things about the book that just didn't make sense to me, Also, I felt like I was being "told" things throughout the book instead of seeing them happen or feeling them through the character's perspective.
Because of this, I had a difficult time connecting with the characters, I should point out that this is my personal opinion though and the things that bothered me may not bother someone else.
That said, I stuck with the book because I did find the overall plot intriguing and wanted to see how things played out and were resolved.
I'm glad I did as I was satisfied with the ending of the book,
Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC in exchange for an honest review, Loved the book. The whole story ended up being unexpected, It definitely held my interest, The stuff people do to stay young is crazy, The plane crash that killed Kat and Maddie's parents was still a bit of mystery to me, Was it ever explained what happened to cause the crash How did Maddie survive How was she rescued I have so many questions.
I felt like I got to know Maddie a lot better than her sister Kat, I do know that Kat doesn't make good choices, She picked all the wrong men and then found herself in some scary Mexican spa, I would have loved to read about her experience at the spa before everything went wrong and then how she discovered the truth about what was happening.
I enjoyed the story, characters and writing style, I loved the whole mystery of Maddie trying to figure out what happened to her sister, I hate when characters go off somewhere and never tell people where they are going, This always leads to something bad happening, Maddie is in another country, her sister is already missing, so what does she do She goes off on her own without telling a soul and better yet she doesn't own a cell phone.
I really enjoyed the book, but the ending seemed rushed, Maddie finally gets to the spa and then it's pretty much over and the story wraps up, Everyone is at the spa, mystery solved and then the story jumps a few months, Kat never really tells her side of what happened, What caused her appearance to change hat drastically,
Definitely recommend the book, I loved the mystery side of the book, Remember to tell people when you go somewhere, in case you get held against your will and need to be saved!!! Just leave a note! I read too many of these types of books.
Also LOVED Winks. Looking forward to reading more books by the author,
I received a complimentary copy of this book from Lake Union Publishing through NetGalley, Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own, “Everyone has scars, Maddie, They just hide them in different ways, ”
Beautifully written and with a vague hint of lore and mystery, The Orchid Sister was simply magical.
In the wake of a challenging upbringing, two sisters prove that their bond is greater than the bad things that come their way.
This suspenseful womens fiction novel is a beautiful story, and one with many layers,
About the Book
The girl with the scars, The girl with many masks, Maddie has many names, and many ways she is described by others, It is hard for people to see past the scars that Maddie wears, marks from the plane crash that killed her parents.
Marks of a survivor, though they dont always feel that way, When Maddie met Jack, handsome and adventurous, she fell for him quickly, Jack was one of the first men that didnt recoil from her scars, He sees Maddie as the beautiful person she is, inside and out, Her scars are just on display,
Maddie is fascinated with masks, and she also creates her own masks, Perhaps this is part of her healing, a way to show that the outward appearance often hides who someone is, But the masks also have so much meaning, and Maddie is fascinated by the way different cultures create and use masks, The symbolism and the work that goes into them lends to the magical and ethereal quality, And of course, the masks also have symbolism in this book!
Maddies sister Kat has disappeared, and though the police initially doubt Maddies insistence that something happened to her sister, Maddie knows it to be true.
It is the kind of thing you can feel when you have a bond like Maddie and Kat, But of course, we know where Kat is, because half of the chapters are told from Kats perspective, And the more we learn about where Kat is, the more sinister it becomes
Reflection
There are eventuallynarrators to this novel, though Maddie and Kat narrate the most chapters.
Structurally the changes between the storylines kept it engaging, I ended up listening to the audiobook for this one, and all of the voice actors were fantastic, It made it so easy to follow whose chapter it was, Each was very unique, as were the stories they had to tell!
A good portion of the book takes place in the Yucatan in Mexico, and it really is the sort of book that transports you there.
I loved the local lore that surrounded Kats disappearance and discovery, There was a dark, mystical quality to this mystery that leant to the atmospheric feel of the book, Wonderful!
Many thanks to Lake Union publishing for my copy, Opinions are my own. .