YA contemporary fantasy. A young Black woman in Brooklyn whose touch, and sometimes mere presence, causes plants to grow, bloom, move. From a hitherto unknown relative, she inherits an old mansion outside a small town in upstate New York. Adventure ensues and she learns more about her powers and the heritage she has been born into. Definitely some engaging elements to it, but also a lot that I was pretty ambivalent about. I quite enjoyed some of the characters and relationships. While there were parts of the worldbuilding that I appreciated, it felt a bit clunky overall. The ways in which crucial information was kept from (and then revealed to) the main character about her powers and her family and so on felt arbitrary sometimes, and too often like they were following author-logic rather than story-logic. Felt very conscious of its YA-ness while reading it, which is not something I usually experience when reading that genre – not sure quite what that says about the book. Anyway, not terrible, but I may or may not bother with the sequel when it comes out.
Originally posted by Scott on Goodreads.