
The Strange and Beautiful Sorrows of Ava Lavender
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Narrated by:
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Cassandra Campbell
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By:
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Leslye Walton
Magical realism, lyrical prose, and the pain and passion of human love haunt this hypnotic generational saga. Foolish love appears to be the Roux family birthright, an ominous forecast for its most recent progeny, Ava Lavender.
Ava - in all other ways a normal girl - is born with the wings of a bird. In a quest to understand her peculiar disposition and a growing desire to fit in with her peers, sixteen-year old Ava ventures into the wider world, ill-prepared for what she might discover and naive to the twisted motives of others. Others like the pious Nathaniel Sorrows, who mistakes Ava for an angel and whose obsession with her grows until the night of the summer solstice celebration. That night, the skies open up, rain and feathers fill the air, and Ava’s quest and her family’s saga build to a devastating crescendo. First-time author Leslye Walton has constructed a layered and unforgettable mythology of what it means to be born with hearts that are tragically, exquisitely human.
©2014 Leslye Walton, original book published by Candlewick Press. (P)2014 Brilliance Audio, Inc.Listeners also enjoyed...




















Critic reviews
- Morris Award Finalist, 2015
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Took my breath away
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Engaging characters,
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Wonderfully Strange
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a strange tale
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It was an interesting premise in which Walton created a lot of interesting exposition and back stories but the story of Ava Lavender itself falls flat. You never really care about her; she is little more than the character who happens to narrate the story, nor are there any other characters you are really rooting for. When bad things happen, as they inevitably do, you are not surprised or upset. It's like a really long, twisted bedtime story. I just wanted it to be over, knowing it was not going to offer me any sort of awesome plot twist or satisfying conclusion, so that I could go download something else! Some people seemed to really like it, but if you care about a strong story and characters, look elsewhere.
Watited for the story...then for it to end
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Slow To Get Into, But A Strangely Beautiful Finish
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Beautiful story with outstanding writing
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Still, it was a cool story with a few bad points in execution. I found the whole bakery sub theme to be distracting and annoying. Why was it set in a bakery? Why all the lengthy expositions on baked goods? Listen, I love a bakery as much as the next guy, but at points I felt like enough was enough. The bakery is decadent. It contrasts with the angel wings. I get it. Please don't describe another chocolate cake.
In fact, I couldn't help but think in the back of my mind the whole time that the story was set in a time period that was death for American bakeries. Post war food industrialism killed neighborhood food artisans, one of which the protagonist's grandmother is supposed to be. The small bakeries that survived from the 1950s onward did so by replicating Americans' taste for cheap, chemical products during this era. In a story filled with ghosts and a girl born with wings, the item that prevented the suspension of my disbelief was the crappy historical sociology.
Great narration
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Not for me.
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My favorite book!
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