The Strange and Beautiful Sorrows of Ava Lavender

The Strange and Beautiful Sorrows of Ava Lavender (2014), a magical realism novel for young adults by Leslye Walton, follows a young girl and the family secrets she uncovers on her quest to better understand her identity. Walton’s debut novel, The Strange and Beautiful Sorrows of Ava Lavender was met with critical acclaim. It won the 2015 PEN Center USA Literary Award for Children’s and Young Adult Literature. Walton is a full-time writer of young adult fiction. She lives in Seattle, Washington.

Ava Lavender is normal in every way, except for one thing—she was born with wings like a bird. The women of her family are all “strange” and attract an endless string of bad fortune. None of them, however, are quite like Ava. Ava spends her childhood wondering who she is and where she truly belongs, narrating what’s happened to her closest female relatives to both inform readers and explore her own history.

Her grandmother, Emilienne, moves from France to New York but tragically loses all three of her siblings and both her parents. She marries Connor Lavender, who has a deformed leg because of childhood polio and believes he’s unworthy of love. Emilienne is not a good match for Connor because she’s only marrying him to get out of New York and away from her tragic memories. She promises Connor that she’ll make sure she has a child as long as he takes her to Seattle—or somewhere else that isn’t New York.



Desperate for love, Connor agrees, and they move to Seattle. However, shortly after the birth of their daughter, Viviane, Connor dies. Viviane grows up never knowing her father, but she feels she’s somehow to blame for his death. When Viviane grows up, she sleeps with a boy called Jack, whom she loves dearly but who won’t marry her because his father wants him to marry someone richer. Viviane gives birth to twins—Ava and her brother, Henry.

Viviane tells Ava and Henry stories of their ancestors and how love always brought them bad luck. She wants to keep Ava and Henry in the house because she’s worried they’ll only have their hearts broken by other people. Ava’s wings are symbolic—she wants freedom, but she’s trapped. She spends most of her childhood wondering what life on the outside is like and what it’s like to go to normal school. Her brother never speaks very much, so she’s isolated. They never know their father.

All Ava wants is love, but Viviane’s always telling her how dangerous it is. She learns about the ancestor who turned into a canary the day a man told her he loved her, and how Viviane couldn’t be with another man after that one night with Jack. Ava is taught that love is toxic unless it’s pure, like maternal love. Ava tries to believe what her mother says, but she can’t help feeling smothered and that she’s missing out on life.



One day, she makes a friend near her house called Cardigan. Cardigan is quiet but friendly, and she’s easy for someone like Ava to get along with. She tells Ava about what life is like outside the local community. One day, sitting by a window in Ava’s house, they see a new neighbor moving in across the street. The man, Nathaniel Sorrows, wants to be a priest one day. However, he’s taking care of his ailing aunt first.

She’s instantly drawn to Nathaniel and tries to catch his attention. One day, he glimpses her wings and tells her that she must be an angel because only angels have wings. She’s flattered by his affection and easily influenced by what he says because she’s naïve and not used to dealing with men. She’s always showing off her feathers in a bid to tease him; she even plucks some of her feathers to give to him. In effect, she’s giving him a piece of herself that she can’t get back.

When Ava, one day, moves on and stops caring about Nathaniel, he’s incensed. He wants to have power over an angel, and he won’t let her go. He rapes her, thinking he’ll be enlightened, but discovers she’s just a girl—something she’s tried to say all along. He rips off her wings, and she’s rushed to the hospital; it takes months for her wings to regrow.



At the end of the book, Ava is back home. She has fallen in love with Cardigan’s brother, who treats her as who she is—an ordinary girl whom he happens to love. Unfortunately, the happiness doesn’t last long, because Emilianne falls ill. For all Ava hopes Emilianne will get better, she doesn’t, and she passes away.

Ava stays home, waiting for her wings to grow stronger. Once she’s strong enough, she “spreads her wings” and flies away. This symbolizes growing up, finding herself, and embracing who she truly is. There’s a sense that she’s broken the “bad luck” curse over her family and they can all be whoever they want to be.