The Strange and Beautiful Sorrows of Ava Lavender Audiobook By Leslye Walton cover art

The Strange and Beautiful Sorrows of Ava Lavender

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The Strange and Beautiful Sorrows of Ava Lavender

By: Leslye Walton
Narrated by: Cassandra Campbell
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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. Family Family & Relationships Fantasy Fiction Literature & Fiction Romance Science Fiction & Fantasy Heartfelt

Critic reviews

  • Morris Award Finalist, 2015

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A gorgeous story of love and so much more. Evocative of early Alice Hoffman or Sarah Addison Allen.

Took my breath away

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My daughter and I listened over a few weeks in the car. We really enjoyed this.

Engaging characters,

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Wonderful story with nice character build, just like the title, its strange and wonderful, i would recommend this to anyone who wants a background on each character.

Wonderfully Strange

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it's a difficult book to review. It's dreamy and strange and full of sorrow, it Is worth it ..I think

a strange tale

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I wanted to love this book. I, like some other reviewers, found it on a list of YA novels to watch out for. I was disappointed. It is a fairly grown up story with lots of violence, etc, which doesn't bother me in the least, but the language is immature, almost like a fairytale at some points and so simplistic as to draw attention to itself and this strange contrast of content and style--not incredibly well written (of course, I think listening makes this more noticeable and especially in the absence of a captivating storyline).

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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It took quite a while for me to gain interest in the storyline, part of which I'm sure had to do with the monotone narration - hence my 3 star review... however the last five chapters saved it for me. Definitely not for everyone, but I'm glad I gave this one a chance nonetheless.

Slow To Get Into, But A Strangely Beautiful Finish

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One of the most beautiful books I’ve finished this year. An absolutely delightful read. The narrator goes above and beyond to illustrate such a gorgeous story.

Beautiful story with outstanding writing

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So the vocal performance of this book was pretty good. As for the book itself, well, I probably wouldn't have bought it if I had realized it was in the "Young Adult" genre. So that colors my experience in a negative way.

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 my kind of story or narrative. While listening I felt like I needed to write a paper for it afterwards.

Not for me.

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I bought this audio book because, I saw the cover and was drawn in. Pretty wine bottles and book covers always get me. While listening to the first few chapters I know I thought to myself several times “What the hell, this is crazy!” but by the end of the book I was crying and breathless. It spans 4 generations of a family that is familiar with oddities. It’s horror, it’s mystery, it’s violent and then it is beautiful. It’s so beautifully written that I stopped several times and wrote down some of the lines because I wanted to remember them. The narrator did a FANTASTIC job. There are so many different characters and accents in this story and I was never lost. I want to listen to it again. I highly recommend!

My favorite book!

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