∎ [PDF] Gratis The Weight of Feathers eBook AnnaMarie McLemore

The Weight of Feathers eBook AnnaMarie McLemore

Download As PDF : The Weight of Feathers eBook AnnaMarie McLemore

The Weight of Feathers eBook AnnaMarie McLemore

** Trigger warning for violence, including domestic abuse, as well as rape. **

“The rain on her dress and his shirt would stick them to each other, dissolve the skin between them, until their veins tangled like roots, and they breathed together, one scaled and dark-feathered thing.”

Lace’s first encounter with Cluck is in the parking lot of a convenience store located on the outskirts of Almendro, California, a sleepy little town. Three of her cousins are attacking Cluck, pummeling him with their fists and feet, for no reason other than his perceived difference. Well-versed in the art of taking a beating – thanks to his older brother Dax – Cluck just lies there, taking it, hoping that his lack of participation will sap some of the fun out of their “game.” Lace chases his attackers away, and then offers Cluck ice cubes wrapped in her scarf to sooth his cuts and bruises. Both mistake the other for a local – when, in fact, they are members of two rival families of traveling performers.

The Palomas and Corbeaus travel all across North America, but always cross paths in Almendro; the crowd drawn there by the annual Blackberry Festival is just too good to pass up. For years, they were simply rivals, showpeople competing over the same sets of eyeballs. But one flooded lake and two dead performers – one from each family – turned them to enemies. Each blames the other for the “natural disaster,” with the stories and superstitions becoming more outlandish year after year. Each family can agree on one thing, however: the only acceptable way to touch a Paloma (or Corbeau) is in the pursuit of violence.

Their next meeting comes under even worse circumstances, if you can imagine. It’s after sunset, and both Lace and Cluck’s respective shows have concluded. Late to arrive home after a brush with death in a nylon fishing net, Lace is caught alone in the forest when the sky begins to rain adhesives. After years of ignoring safety regulations, the local chemical plant – which Cluck’s own grandfather once ran with care – ruptured a mixing tank, sending corrosive chemicals into the air. They react violently with the cotton of Lace’s dress, devouring the material and scalding her skin. As Lace begins to lose consciousness, a savior arrives: Cluck, who ran into the woods in search of his cousin Eugenie when the sirens began to blare.

Yet the very act of heroism that delivered Lace from death cursed her in the eyes of her family: one of Cluck’s feathers came between them, searing its mark into Lace’s skin. Once her Abuela spots the burn and realizes that she’s been touched by a Corbeau – infected with the family’s evil – she banishes Lace from the show.

Her father always dreamed something else – college, a home of her own, a “real” job – for his daughter, but Lace wants nothing more than to swim as a mermaid alongside her cousins. In a desperate effort to find a way back into the Palomas, Lace crosses over to the Corbeaus’ side of the forest. There she hopes to make Cluck indebted to her, so that he’ll have no choice but to reverse his magia negro and remove the feather from her arm. And, well, I think you know the rest: these two star-crossed lovers fall hard for one another, much to their families’ displeasure.

McLemore’s retelling of William Shakespeare’s ROMEO AND JULIET is simply inspired: magical and creative, filled with equal touches of whimsy and harshness, but with an ending that’s about a kajillion times more satisfying (dare I say liberating?) than the original. This is William Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet – and also not, in the best way possible.

I haven’t read ROMEO AND JULIET since my freshman year in high school – over half a lifetime ago now – so most of my knowledge probably comes from Baz Luhrmann’s 1996 film adaptation. (Leonardo DiCaprio and Claire Danes were so cute together, y’all!) One of the improvements made by McLemore – second only (maybe) to transporting us to a circus-type setting – is in the relationship between “Romeo” and “Juliet.” Lace and Cluck’s coupling isn’t that instalove that’s so often scoffed at by readers nowadays; nor are they just two spoiled teenagers with a keen fashion sense and a flair for the melodramatic.

Rather, Lace and Cluck bond over shared life circumstances. While the Palomas and Corbeaus mock the pedestrian nature of the others’ acts, both Lace and Cluck recognize the skill and artistry inherent in each performance. Whereas the Paloma women – dressed in mermaid tails and clamshell bras – dance in the water, flitting through the skeletons of those trees drowned in that fateful flood some twenty years ago, the Corbeaus strap feathered wings to their backs and make the living trees of the forest their stage. Both families don costumes, even though there is no need: the Paloma women have their own escalas, iridescent birthmarks that claim them as Palomas and provide them with protection and blessings; and the Corbeaus grow their own black crow’s feathers under their hair. Yet none of these are to be flaunted in their shows: sacred and revered, the scales and feathers are not for outsiders to gape at.

And both teenagers have been held captive by their families: by the strict discipline and unquestioning obedience required by the Paloma and Corbeau matriarchs; the superstitions that govern their behavior, particularly their interactions with the rival family; and the hate that they have been taught from birth.
Both families are insular and suspicious of outsiders, with a decidedly cruel streak. With his dark hair and brown skin that betrays his family’s Romani blood, Cluck serves as a constant reminder that the Corbeaus aren’t as cosmopolitan French as they’d like everyone to believe. Though his mother Nicole eschews her father’s gitano traditions, still she sees Cluck’s left-handedness as a sign of evil. And so, when her favorite son Dax beats Cluck – in what can only be described as ongoing, severe domestic violence – she looks the other way. Dax is the reason he’s called Cluck, instead of Luc; when he was nine and Dax was fourteen, Dax broke three of the fingers on his left hand. They were never set properly – Nicole didn’t want to pay to have them rebroken – and so they curled into a little claw, like a hen’s. Since Dax doesn’t much care for it, Cluck wears the nickname like a badge of honor.

Meanwhile, Lace’s family throws her out on the street for allowing a Corbeau to touch her bare skin – never mind that her only other choice was death. Though her Abuela‘s bullying is more emotional than physical, she’s all but given Lace an eating disorder; during the day, Lace starves herself so that she’ll fit into her tail, only to binge on junk food after the show. Lace is already burdened with self-esteem issues prior to the accident; the heart-shaped scar on her cheek, coupled with the hateful feather on her arm, threaten to turn her into a recluse. (Plus the PTSD doesn’t help.)

There’s some other stuff too, but spoilers. Suffice it to say that both families are pretty hardcore; they cling to their members with a stubbornness that’s suffocating, but are also quick to cut a son, granddaughter, or cousin loose given special circumstances. This push-pull could easily tear a weaker person apart. Luckily, Lace and Cluck are brave – and even more so when supported by the other.

Theirs is a love sweet and true – but with a shadow as dark as the Corbeau family feathers. Yet it’s a dappled shade, one that mirrors both the best and worst of us. Where the sun and moon shine through to kiss the grass, their love is a defiance of their fate and families; a reaffirmation of their self-determination and humanity; an appreciation of the other’s quirks and flaws – and an acceptance of their own. In the darkest recesses lie longstanding feuds, a seething hatred that is passed down from generation to generation, and an abhorrence and suspicion of difference. Stereotypes and prejudices in every flavor imaginable.

These are two young people who have been cast off by their families, yet still find the courage to move forward, in search of a new path – a better one, absent the bitterness and lies laid down by their predecessors. Their romance is sweet and tender, but also surprisingly sexy at times; a creature of exceptional beauty, much like Cluck and his red-tinged feathers, or baby-faced Lace and her unscathed scales.

The sharper edges of McLemore’s brutal yet hopeful story are softened by lovely imagery – including some rather surreal elements, many of them involving feathers: the mysteriously multiplying feathers in Lace’s suitcase, or the old woman who transforms into feathers, taking flight to show the young lovers their way.

Read it if you enjoyed ROMEO AND JULIET; read it if you didn’t. Read it for the mermaids and fairies, if nothing else. There’s magic in them there woods.

** Full disclosure: I received a free electronic ARC for review through NetGalley. **


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The Weight of Feathers eBook AnnaMarie McLemore Reviews

The Palomas and Corbeaus have a long-standing feud, twenty years to be exact. Not only are they rival performers (with the Palomas swimming in the water like mermaids, and the Corbeaus dancing in the trees like birds), they've had what they believe to be personal loss inflicted upon them by the other. Two weeks out of every year the families end up performing at the same time, in the same small town. Since childhood the Paloma's have always been taught to stay away from the Corbeaus and their magia negra. Likewise, the Corbeaus have always been taught never to go near the Palomas with their magie noire. Unless of course they're throwing punches, that contact is highly encouraged.

This is the first year Lace Paloma will get to wear a tail and perform with her cousins in the show. She doesn't want anything to mess up this chance, she's been dreaming about it forever. But when disaster strikes the small town of Almendro where the families are performing, Lace's life is saved by one of the very people she's been warned away from.

Cluck may be a Corbeau by name, but he's treated like le diable by most of his family. Not being allowed to perform in the trees with his brother and cousins, Cluck contributes by making their beautiful wings. When he saves Lace, he doesn't know at the time that she's a Paloma.

When Lace figures out the boy who helped her was a Corbeau, she's cast out of the family. Trying to get back in the Palomas' good graces Lace sends up incorporating herself into the very family she's been taught to hate. In doing so, Lace begins to question the very superstitions that reign supreme within both families.

Magical Realism is one of my favorite sub-genres of fiction. I love fantasy and paranormal stories to the extreme, but sometimes the subtlety of magic that just is can be so wonderful. Magic that just shows up in everyday life, no rhyme or reason. Anna-Marie McLemore pulls this off wonderfully with the Palomas and the Corbeaus all while mixing in some classic feuding families.

I loved the subtle commentary about grudges and superstitions. While reading, we are constantly reminded why each family feels the way they do about the other. The wrongs and heartache both families have suffered at the hands of the other. We're learning this from Lace and Cluck's POVs. Two characters who weren't even alive when the slights were committed. I remember thinking how confusing each claim was, how blurred they seemed. The minute changes in each retelling of each blight. But I think that was supposed to be that way. Cleverly stating that, over time, the point of these feuds become lost and muddled until someone is angry only because they are told they should be angry.

I loved Lace and Cluck. Together, by themselves. They were great characters. Both respecting the superstitions put upon them by their families, but never letting these superstitions completely close them off from what they know is right. Lace might believe the Corbeaus have black magic and touching one can put a deadly curse upon you, but she still doesn't want actual conflict with them. Until she's forced into their presence, her solution is to stay away from them. She doesn't encourage the fighting that some of the others in her family are prone to.

In his own way, Cluck tries to avoid conflict too. Even though the violence Cluck has to endure comes from his own family. He doesn't encourage it by fighting back. He never fights back with his fists, but never once did I take this as weakness on Cluck's part. On his side, Cluck holds no love for the Palomas either, but he also feels the skirmishes between the families need to stop. Cluck fights simply by opposing his brother's penchant for bringing harm to the other family. True, this brings more harm upon Cluck's shoulders but he doesn't stop.

Of course, all their beliefs are pretty much thrown out the window once Lace and Cluck get to know one another. Their burgeoning relationship was really sweet amid all the vileness and hatred.

Anna-Marie McLemore has truly written a beautiful tale about seeing something with your own eyes and not letting anyone else have influence over it.

This will definitely be a story I reread over and over. There's a timelessness about it that I absolutely loved. I look forward to reading more stories by Anna-Marie McLemore in the future.
Lovely worldbuilding in this book. I liked the writing style. It was very poetic and I think that alone made up for some of the faults, but there were still a few things I got caught up on.
I wish there were less Spanish and French words used or at least, that they were more quickly translated. I shouldn’t have to be fluent in two different languages after ordering the English version of your novel. Okay, so maybe it wasn’t that bad, but bad enough to be distracting and pull me from the story a few times—especially in the beginning.
There was a whole chapter where the girl was topless in front of the male character for no reason other than “she wasn’t sure what to wear.” Ridiculous and pointless. Just grab a shirt. Any shirt. I might have even accepted a bra since she was swimming. I can be forgiving for some content depending on how it is handled/framed and who it is marketed for, but this just seemed stupid, even if it wasn’t graphic.
I liked how the different story threads came together in the end. The characters were well-developed and interesting, even though the action parts of the plot were a bit slower. I’m interested in looking at what else this author has written, but I would pay careful attention to any potential content issues to see if it would be an okay fit for me.
Four Stars
** Trigger warning for violence, including domestic abuse, as well as rape. **

“The rain on her dress and his shirt would stick them to each other, dissolve the skin between them, until their veins tangled like roots, and they breathed together, one scaled and dark-feathered thing.”

Lace’s first encounter with Cluck is in the parking lot of a convenience store located on the outskirts of Almendro, California, a sleepy little town. Three of her cousins are attacking Cluck, pummeling him with their fists and feet, for no reason other than his perceived difference. Well-versed in the art of taking a beating – thanks to his older brother Dax – Cluck just lies there, taking it, hoping that his lack of participation will sap some of the fun out of their “game.” Lace chases his attackers away, and then offers Cluck ice cubes wrapped in her scarf to sooth his cuts and bruises. Both mistake the other for a local – when, in fact, they are members of two rival families of traveling performers.

The Palomas and Corbeaus travel all across North America, but always cross paths in Almendro; the crowd drawn there by the annual Blackberry Festival is just too good to pass up. For years, they were simply rivals, showpeople competing over the same sets of eyeballs. But one flooded lake and two dead performers – one from each family – turned them to enemies. Each blames the other for the “natural disaster,” with the stories and superstitions becoming more outlandish year after year. Each family can agree on one thing, however the only acceptable way to touch a Paloma (or Corbeau) is in the pursuit of violence.

Their next meeting comes under even worse circumstances, if you can imagine. It’s after sunset, and both Lace and Cluck’s respective shows have concluded. Late to arrive home after a brush with death in a nylon fishing net, Lace is caught alone in the forest when the sky begins to rain adhesives. After years of ignoring safety regulations, the local chemical plant – which Cluck’s own grandfather once ran with care – ruptured a mixing tank, sending corrosive chemicals into the air. They react violently with the cotton of Lace’s dress, devouring the material and scalding her skin. As Lace begins to lose consciousness, a savior arrives Cluck, who ran into the woods in search of his cousin Eugenie when the sirens began to blare.

Yet the very act of heroism that delivered Lace from death cursed her in the eyes of her family one of Cluck’s feathers came between them, searing its mark into Lace’s skin. Once her Abuela spots the burn and realizes that she’s been touched by a Corbeau – infected with the family’s evil – she banishes Lace from the show.

Her father always dreamed something else – college, a home of her own, a “real” job – for his daughter, but Lace wants nothing more than to swim as a mermaid alongside her cousins. In a desperate effort to find a way back into the Palomas, Lace crosses over to the Corbeaus’ side of the forest. There she hopes to make Cluck indebted to her, so that he’ll have no choice but to reverse his magia negro and remove the feather from her arm. And, well, I think you know the rest these two star-crossed lovers fall hard for one another, much to their families’ displeasure.

McLemore’s retelling of William Shakespeare’s ROMEO AND JULIET is simply inspired magical and creative, filled with equal touches of whimsy and harshness, but with an ending that’s about a kajillion times more satisfying (dare I say liberating?) than the original. This is William Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet – and also not, in the best way possible.

I haven’t read ROMEO AND JULIET since my freshman year in high school – over half a lifetime ago now – so most of my knowledge probably comes from Baz Luhrmann’s 1996 film adaptation. (Leonardo DiCaprio and Claire Danes were so cute together, y’all!) One of the improvements made by McLemore – second only (maybe) to transporting us to a circus-type setting – is in the relationship between “Romeo” and “Juliet.” Lace and Cluck’s coupling isn’t that instalove that’s so often scoffed at by readers nowadays; nor are they just two spoiled teenagers with a keen fashion sense and a flair for the melodramatic.

Rather, Lace and Cluck bond over shared life circumstances. While the Palomas and Corbeaus mock the pedestrian nature of the others’ acts, both Lace and Cluck recognize the skill and artistry inherent in each performance. Whereas the Paloma women – dressed in mermaid tails and clamshell bras – dance in the water, flitting through the skeletons of those trees drowned in that fateful flood some twenty years ago, the Corbeaus strap feathered wings to their backs and make the living trees of the forest their stage. Both families don costumes, even though there is no need the Paloma women have their own escalas, iridescent birthmarks that claim them as Palomas and provide them with protection and blessings; and the Corbeaus grow their own black crow’s feathers under their hair. Yet none of these are to be flaunted in their shows sacred and revered, the scales and feathers are not for outsiders to gape at.

And both teenagers have been held captive by their families by the strict discipline and unquestioning obedience required by the Paloma and Corbeau matriarchs; the superstitions that govern their behavior, particularly their interactions with the rival family; and the hate that they have been taught from birth.
Both families are insular and suspicious of outsiders, with a decidedly cruel streak. With his dark hair and brown skin that betrays his family’s Romani blood, Cluck serves as a constant reminder that the Corbeaus aren’t as cosmopolitan French as they’d like everyone to believe. Though his mother Nicole eschews her father’s gitano traditions, still she sees Cluck’s left-handedness as a sign of evil. And so, when her favorite son Dax beats Cluck – in what can only be described as ongoing, severe domestic violence – she looks the other way. Dax is the reason he’s called Cluck, instead of Luc; when he was nine and Dax was fourteen, Dax broke three of the fingers on his left hand. They were never set properly – Nicole didn’t want to pay to have them rebroken – and so they curled into a little claw, like a hen’s. Since Dax doesn’t much care for it, Cluck wears the nickname like a badge of honor.

Meanwhile, Lace’s family throws her out on the street for allowing a Corbeau to touch her bare skin – never mind that her only other choice was death. Though her Abuela‘s bullying is more emotional than physical, she’s all but given Lace an eating disorder; during the day, Lace starves herself so that she’ll fit into her tail, only to binge on junk food after the show. Lace is already burdened with self-esteem issues prior to the accident; the heart-shaped scar on her cheek, coupled with the hateful feather on her arm, threaten to turn her into a recluse. (Plus the PTSD doesn’t help.)

There’s some other stuff too, but spoilers. Suffice it to say that both families are pretty hardcore; they cling to their members with a stubbornness that’s suffocating, but are also quick to cut a son, granddaughter, or cousin loose given special circumstances. This push-pull could easily tear a weaker person apart. Luckily, Lace and Cluck are brave – and even more so when supported by the other.

Theirs is a love sweet and true – but with a shadow as dark as the Corbeau family feathers. Yet it’s a dappled shade, one that mirrors both the best and worst of us. Where the sun and moon shine through to kiss the grass, their love is a defiance of their fate and families; a reaffirmation of their self-determination and humanity; an appreciation of the other’s quirks and flaws – and an acceptance of their own. In the darkest recesses lie longstanding feuds, a seething hatred that is passed down from generation to generation, and an abhorrence and suspicion of difference. Stereotypes and prejudices in every flavor imaginable.

These are two young people who have been cast off by their families, yet still find the courage to move forward, in search of a new path – a better one, absent the bitterness and lies laid down by their predecessors. Their romance is sweet and tender, but also surprisingly sexy at times; a creature of exceptional beauty, much like Cluck and his red-tinged feathers, or baby-faced Lace and her unscathed scales.

The sharper edges of McLemore’s brutal yet hopeful story are softened by lovely imagery – including some rather surreal elements, many of them involving feathers the mysteriously multiplying feathers in Lace’s suitcase, or the old woman who transforms into feathers, taking flight to show the young lovers their way.

Read it if you enjoyed ROMEO AND JULIET; read it if you didn’t. Read it for the mermaids and fairies, if nothing else. There’s magic in them there woods.

** Full disclosure I received a free electronic ARC for review through NetGalley. **