Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    Unavailable
    Blanca & Roja
    Unavailable
    Blanca & Roja
    Unavailable
    Blanca & Roja
    Ebook369 pages4 hours

    Blanca & Roja

    By Anna-Marie McLemore

    4/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this ebook

    Award-winning author Anna-Marie McLemore retells Swan Lake in this spellbinding YA story of sisters who are each other's best friends—and worst enemies.

    The biggest lie of all is the story you think you already know.

    The del Cisne girls have never just been sisters; they’re also rivals, Blanca is as obedient and graceful as Roja is vicious and manipulative. They know that, because of a generations-old spell, their family is bound to a bevy of swans deep in the woods. They know that, one day, the swans will pull them into a dangerous game that will leave one of them a girl, and trap the other in the body of a swan.

    But when two local boys become drawn into the game, the swans’ spell intertwines with the strange and unpredictable magic lacing the woods, and all four of their fates depend on facing truths that could either save or destroy them.

    Blanca & Roja is the captivating story of sisters, friendship, love, hatred, and the price we pay to protect our hearts.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherMacmillan Publishers
    Release dateOct 9, 2018
    ISBN9781250162700
    Unavailable
    Blanca & Roja
    Author

    Anna-Marie McLemore

    Anna-Marie McLemore (they/them) is the author of The Weight of Feathers, Wild Beauty, Blanca & Roja, Dark and Deepest Red, Lakelore, Venom & Vow (co-authored with Elliott McLemore), and National Book Award longlist selections When the Moon Was Ours, The Mirror Season, and Self-Made Boys: A Great Gatsby Remix. They have received the Michael L. Printz Award, the Stonewall Honor, the Otherwise Award, three Northern California Book Awards, and an Américas Honor.

    Read more from Anna Marie Mc Lemore

    Related to Blanca & Roja

    Related ebooks

    YA Romance For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      The Jasmine Throne

      Jun 16, 2021

      The Jasmine Throne
      2 min read

    • Article

      The Bone Shard Daughter

      Sep 9, 2020

      RELEASED 10 SEPTEMBER 448 pages | Hardback/ebook/audiobook Author Andrea Stewart Publisher Orbit Books Epic fantasy has long had a thing for One True Kings. You know the drill: a dreadful tyrant is murdering people for fun and generally imperilling t

      1 min read

    • Article

      For The Wolf

      Jun 16, 2021

      ⏵ RELEASED 17 JUNE 480 pages | Paperback/ebook/audiobook ⏵ Author Hannah Whitten ⏵ Publisher Orbit Books Wolves run through fairy tales, flashing a tooth here, a tail there. But if you pick this up expecting to see familiar motifs popping up, you’ll

      1 min read

    • Article

      Mother Tongue

      Feb 24, 2021

      Mother Tongue
      12 min read

    • Article

      Hauntings

      Jul 5, 2023

      Hauntings
      11 min read

    • Article

      The Snow Woman’s Daughter

      Nov 1, 2020

      The Snow Woman’s Daughter
      9 min read

    • Article

      The Evil Stepmother

      Apr 3, 2019

      The Evil Stepmother
      6 min read

    • Article

      Heave’s Whisky

      Feb 27, 2024

      Heave’s Whisky
      7 min read

    • Article

      The Currency of Tears

      Sep 9, 2019

      The Currency of Tears
      7 min read

    • Article

      Cherry Season

      Sep 3, 2020

      1. My mother’s mother kept a set of painted wooden nesting dolls on top of her television. When I was small and went to her house, I would take the set apart and line up the five dolls on her living room floor, side by side, from biggest to smallest.

      16 min read

    • Article

      The Inherited Imagination

      Aug 18, 2020

      The Inherited Imagination
      9 min read

    • Article

      Death On The Limpopo

      Sep 16, 2019

      Death On The Limpopo
      5 min read

    • Article

      The Thirty Names of Night

      Oct 30, 2020

      The Thirty Names of Night
      13 min read

    • Article

      Mystery Guide

      Dec 31, 2023

      Mystery Guide
      4 min read

    • Article

      'Tis The Season

      Nov 2, 2022

      'Tis The Season
      2 min read

    • Article

      Lineal Gaps

      Apr 6, 2021

      Lineal Gaps
      15 min read

    • Article

      Shanda

      Jan 1, 2024

      Shanda
      13 min read

    • Article

      Come Stay

      Jan 16, 2024

      Come Stay
      23 min read

    • Article

      Tis The Season

      Nov 2, 2022

      Tis The Season
      2 min read

    • Article

      Princess Bari

      Apr 15, 2019

      Princess Bari
      6 min read

    • Article

      Shards

      Jun 1, 2018

      Shards
      6 min read

    • Article

      Little House

      Jun 5, 2023

      On Monday nights our mother made popcorn and served it to us in mugs with milk poured over. My younger sister and I carried our mugs into the family room and ate the popcorn with spoons, like cereal. We were five and seven. Until we were allowed to s

      21 min read

    • Article

      Winds Of Change

      Dec 10, 2019

      “Till the end of the pitted and dusty lane, she was a dry, brown leaf swiftly floating down a clear stream. Part of it was easy, the part about being brown. ‘Brown as mud and common as mud,’ Aaji would scream every morning waking her up. The rest of

      9 min read

    • Article

      What’s In A Name?

      Dec 22, 2021

      What’s In A Name?
      9 min read

    • Article

      Love Sounds

      Oct 10, 2022

      My daughter’s getting married. She is thirty-two and beautiful. I remember—it seems like just the other day—when she was sprawled and breathless. There she was, flat on her back, covered by pink panda pajamas, the odor of sleep drenched in her pillow

      13 min read

    • Article

      Granny

      Jan 17, 2024

      Granny
      7 min read

    • Article

      The Change

      Aug 8, 2019

      The Change
      10 min read

    Related categories

    Reviews for Blanca & Roja

    4/5

    51 ratings3 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

    • 4/5
      "My hope for you, reader, for all of us, is two sides of the same wish: that the world gives us each the space to write our own story, and that we leave room for each other's stories. They are where our hearts survive."Once again, McLemore's lush prose kept me turning the pages.But, this time around, the story didn't click for me. Maybe it was the constantly shifting POV among Blanca, Roja, Yearling, and Page. Or maybe it was the short chapters (sometimes only a page long), which made reading feel choppy rather than fluid. Or it could be the source material ("Snow White and Rose Red"; "Swan Lake"), so even though this retelling had compelling parts, I just didn't connect deeply enough with its whole.I'm still glad I read Blanca & Roja, and I would definitely recommend it to fans of fairy-tale retellings and magical realism, especially anyone who identifies as transgender and/or genderqueer, or someone who loves or cares about someone who identifies as such. Or for readers looking for stories that center Latinx characters within this genre. McLemore really does write beautifully inclusive stories.3.5 starsNotes to self:"But I've always known it was earlier than that. And not just because the colors of girls are decided before they're born, though that's something I know to be true." (Page)"There was no room for me to ask to be called both him and her. There were already too many people who thought I was just a failure as a girl. They wouldn't listen long enough for me to say that I had never been one. I was a boy who had to bear the same assumption so many girls endured, that I was simply the wrong kind of girl." (Page)"When it came to our garden, no one knew better than Blanca that beautiful things so often choked things trying to grow." (Roja)"The ugly duckling's great surprise was not the moment he saw himself in the pond. That came later. The moment of his greatest shock was when the swans embraced him, took him into their flutter of wings. It was the moment they made themselves his family. It was when they recognized him before he recognized himself." (Page)"For me, the point where fairy tales and magical realism intersect is this: We find what is beautiful in what is broken. We find what is heartening in what is terrifying. We find the stars in the woods' deepest shadows. Snow-White and Rose-Red are not just sisters growing up in their mother's garden, but young women pushing back against what the world has decided for them." (Author's Note)
    • 3/5
      diverse teen romance with fairytale elements (Latina main characters and LGBTQA interest).
      I generally like all of McLemore's books, and also liked this one, but I felt it was a little bit less successful because of how similar all of the narrative voices were--I had to keep checking the chapter headings to see which sister was speaking. It wasn't a huge deal, but for someone that generally has trouble with names and telling characters apart, it was a significant thing that I remember about the book.

      I loved that one of the boys was of non-binary gender (Page identifies as a "boy" but also feels that both "he" and "she" pronouns fit her most of the time), and the story also included lesbian grandmothers. The del Cisne aunt/cousin from a previous generation that was a trans-female was also a nice touch added to the background of the family curse. Also appreciated: the conversations about consent before kissing (and more than kissing).
      I also loved (though others may not) that there was a noticeable amount of menstruation talk in here. For something that happens on a monthly basis and that is or has been experienced by half the population on earth, I have so rarely seen it openly talked about in books.
    • 5/5
      I MEAN. WHAT DO YOU WANT ME TO SAY?

      It's her 4th book and she keeps getting better, that's all you CAN say....

      Achy, gorgeous, and MAGNIFICENT.