spoiler visualizarLarissa.Santos 15/01/2023
Nothing like it
I loved the theme of the book, a story centered around twins and adding a racial feature was just great thinking. I believe it was a nice opportunity to know more about this type of relationship, growing up with someone that looks exactly like you and the book made me wonder if all twins feel the same way as the characters, Stella and Desiree. I just missed this introspective characteristics coming from Desiree, since we get to know more about it through Stellas thoughts.
Anyway, I found interesting the shifts in focus. At first you would think that the story was about the city and then boom Jude's life, then by the middle to the end stellas perspective. And the themes, oh lord, so many. I absolutely adore the queerness of the book, Reese as a trans man really caught off guard and I could read a whole series just about his life and his love story with Jude. Even though I haven't read or actually know much about the process/the life that a trans person go through I believe the author wrote it beautifully.
Another theme, the main one I believe, is blackness and the characters relationship with it. The whole idea of the city, Mallard, is pretty much genius. A third place as the founder said. A city colorist in it's core in which the later inhabitants continued with the same beliefs. It's funny because when reading about biracial people or mulattos there's always this sense of isolation, not fitting anywhere, not being accepted, and the author materialized to a whole city. One that could not even be found in a map. The city being the way it was is why I love the presence of Jude's character. She is like the personification of their blackness, shes literally one of them through the connection to Desiree and looking like the most raw version of what they hated. She being the one after Stella and actually finding her was just the cherry on the ice cream. Stella's blackness literally hunting her down.
It's just sad how hurtful a life Jude had, the amount of trauma. I could relate to many of her feelings, specially insecurity towards romantic relationships. It's hard to believe you're loved when your figure is hated, even by your own Family as it was by her grandmother. And that's why I THRIVE on her finding the purest form of love through Reese.
I didn't expect the ending to be the way it was, specially with Adele's disease. I read these pages uncontrollably crying on the bus. It was very personal for me since my grandmother died the same way. It was also surprising that Stella never came back, I swear I was expecting her to come back and create a happy ending but no. I guess she was right and there was no life to come back, Stella from Mallard did not existed anymore, and it was by her own choice. Even though that was not the ending I was expecting or wishing for I'm not really mad at it since I feel it was the most realistic. It was a great reading indeed and will try to remember the name of the author and pay attention to other works from her.