Lakelore
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- $11.99
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
In this young adult novel by award-winning author Anna-Marie McLemore, two non-binary teens are pulled into a magical world under a lake - but can they keep their worlds above water intact?
Everyone who lives near the lake knows the stories about the world underneath it, an ethereal landscape rumored to be half-air, half-water. But Bastián Silvano and Lore Garcia are the only ones who’ve been there. Bastián grew up both above the lake and in the otherworldly space beneath it. Lore’s only seen the world under the lake once, but that one encounter changed their life and their fate.
Then the lines between air and water begin to blur. The world under the lake drifts above the surface. If Bastián and Lore don’t want it bringing their secrets to the surface with it, they have to stop it, and to do that, they have to work together. There’s just one problem: Bastián and Lore haven’t spoken in seven years, and working together means trusting each other with the very things they’re trying to hide.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Seven years after their first meeting took them to a mystical world under body of water Lakelore, 16-year-old trans nonbinary, neurodivergent teens Lore Garcia and Bastián Silvano, both Mexican American, meet again when Lore's family relocates to Bastián's town to avoid dyslexic Lore's difficult past. Bastián, who has ADHD, learned from their brother to emotionally regulate by creating alebrijes—papier-mâché sculptures of mythical creatures—that Bastián releases into Lakelore, where the sculptures come to life. But freeing them cost Bastián the world below, since returning would reunite them and their anxieties. When the world under Lakelore begins to rise above the surface, and the reunited teens' feelings for each other grow, their attempts at normalcy are jeopardized. In this sumptuous tale of magical realism told via alternating perspectives, McLemore (The Mirror Season) holds up realities of being neurodivergent while otherwise marginalized alongside strong friendships and vital family relationships that ground the protagonists. Bastián and Lore are deeply empathetic, loving characters embodying each facet of their intersecting identities with anxiety, hope, and pride that binds them to each other as much as to the loving community that surrounds them. Ages 13–up.
