Lauren Karcz: "The Gallery of Unfinished Girls"

Title: The Gallery of Unfinished Girls [on Amazon | on Goodreads]
Series: None
Author: Lauren Karcz [Site | Goodreads]
Genres: Contemporary with a Twist
Year: 2017
Age: 14+
Stars: 4.5/5
Pros: Atmospheric, surprising, with a strong art commentary and a poignant coming-of-age message.
Cons: The side characters might use more depth. If you like spelled-out endings, you won't find one here.
Will appeal to: People who make art. People who don't, but want to peek into an artist's mind. People who like to read about a teen's family dynamics and personal growth. Most of all, people who crave for spellbinding books with a huge twist.

Blurb: Mercedes Moreno is an artist. At least, she thinks she could be, even though she hasn’t been able to paint anything worthwhile in the past year. Her lack of inspiration might be because her abuela is in a coma. Or the fact that Mercedes is in love with her best friend, Victoria, but is too afraid to admit her true feelings. Despite Mercedes’s creative block, art starts to show up in unexpected ways. A piano appears on her front lawn one morning, and a mysterious new neighbor invites Mercedes to paint with her at the Red Mangrove Estate. At the Estate, Mercedes can create in ways she hasn’t ever before. But Mercedes can’t take anything out of the Estate, including her new-found clarity. Mercedes can’t live both lives forever, and ultimately she must choose between this perfect world of art and truth and a much messier reality. (Amazon)

Review: This is a debut book, but you would never be able to tell. Also, this is a book with less than a thousand ratings on Goodreads, and that, my friends, is a crime. I hope that some of you will get inspired to pick it up and right a wrong after reading my review 😉.

MAGICAL LYRISM

Back when I started blogging, I didn't even know "what" magical realism was (which explains my "contemporary with a twist" label for certain books). Fast forward eight years, and it's become one of my favourite genres, second only to afterlife. What I'm trying to say is, though I wouldn't call myself a MR expert (whereas I claim the title for afterlife 😊), I've read a decent number of books in the category, and TGOUG is one of the most lyrical and exquisite I've ever encountered - plus one that pulled a huge twist on me (yep, this is a "contemporary with a twist" book after all, for more than one reason). I came for the magical mystery (which didn't disappoint - on the contrary, it was more exciting than I expected) and stayed for the art commentary and the teen experience with regard to family, love and life in general. [...]

TRUE TO LIFE

The protagonist, Mercedes, is a Puerto Rican girl living in Florida (with her mom and her younger sister Angela), but whose link with her native place - and especially with her abuela, who may or may not awaken from her coma back home - is strong, though the book doesn't go out of its way in order to hammer the point. She's also bisexual and in love with her best friend - dancer Victoria - who's conveniently oblivious, or maybe more like too preoccupied with her own art to really see what's in front of her. Speaking of convenient, while Mercedes' dad is out of the picture and her mom is in Puerto Rico tending to her abuela, family is, nonetheless, a recurring and grounding theme. But of course, the joy and pain of creating art (or not being able to) and the supposedly unrequited love for Victoria (or the fear of losing her altogether by confessing her real feelings) are the driving forces of Mercedes' story. For a book that boldly puts fantastic and unexplainable elements front and center from the very first page, TGOUG is big on depicting (no pun intended) both the artist experience and the teen one, in a way that feels authentic and validated. That's why this one is as much a fantasy as a coming-of-age (or coming-to-terms) story, though again, the actual magical-realism aspects and the ultimate revelation blew my mind.

THE ODD COUPLE(S)

The only quibbles I have about this book are related to the secondary characters, or some of them. While Mercedes having a male, slightly older friend who never entertains a single inappropriate (or simply romantic) thought about her warmed my heart, it pains me to say that Tall Jon wasn't fleshed out enough - he seemed to exist only to supply Mercedes with cigarettes, music and scraps of wisdom, and I couldn't figure out what he gained from their relationship. As for the love interest Victoria, it's not that I didn't like her, but again, she lacked substance (though maybe it was partly intentional, because despite their old friendship, there's so much uncharted territory between her and Mercedes) and I could barely understand what the protagonist saw in her...except the aspects that Mercedes herself pointed out (a single telling-not-showing incident in an altogether shrewd narrative). Also, her habit of calling Mercedes "dearie" sounded quaint and forced, like it was supposed to be a personality trait that would compensate for all the ones she was short of. But frankly, those things only slightly bothered me. On the other hand, I happily welcomed the in-flux ending, which tied in with the "unfinished girls" theme and was totally honest and realistic - despite the book's pronounced fantasy angle - but still hopeful enough not to disappoint anyone in need of a HEA.

For quotes from this book click here.

For more Contemporary/Contemporary with a Twist books click here.

Like this book? You might also be interested in A.S. King: "Still Life with Tornado".