On the Wings of la Noche / Vanessa L. Torres / Book Review

ON THE WINGS OF LA NOCHE

Etrella "Noche" Villanueva is no stranger to death. She's been escorting souls to the other side for years. That's her job as a Lechuza, after all.

But escorting someone you know, someone who died too soon, isn't an easy job. Something Noche is learning all too quickly. Because she's been stuck for weeks now, night after night visiting the lake where her girlfriend drowned. Visiting Dante's ghost, who she refuses to escort to the great beyond.

Noche knows she'll have to. She has to say goodbye. That's how it works. But she just can't. And every day she shirks her duty, it feels more and more like her life is falling apart. She's not speaking with her best friend anymore. She's having trouble staying awake during class. And when a new kid moves to town, Noche finds herself strangely invested... even though she's absolutely not ready to move on.

THOUGHTS

I loved so much about this book. It has the perfect winter atmosphere with a supernatural twist. And I really did appreciate the grief narrative winding through it. But these elements didn't quite come together as well as I would have hoped.

PROS

Mystical Magic	The world Vanessa L. Torres creates in this book is fresh and evocative. The Lechuza and her duty, her nightly transformations, and the blustery snow all come together to create something so all-encompassing. The ravens that plague Noche feel like suitable harbingers of... something, and the questions we have as readers are questions Noche has too, since she is missing that critical link to her heritage, to a community that might be able to guide her on her supernatural path.
Midwest Rep	It's always nice to read a book so rooted in a setting and to have that setting not be on the East or West coast. Duluth, covered in lake effect snow, is a stark and chilly backdrop to this story. It's a setting that feels important to the plot and the characters, too. It feels different. I really appreciate that.
Seasonal Depression	This book is very seasonal. The winter weather, the clinking ice and the whipping snow, are important. They parallel Noche's grief. They are part of the cause of Noche's grief. And they add a very stark, cold, forlorn feeling to the book overall that only belies the plot. This book is cold, cold, cold in the best way.

CONS

The biggest problem I had with this book was, I think, the general lack of urgency. Don't get me wrong. There's a sense in this book that things should be urgent. Noche acknowledges that things are going wrong, that something worse is coming down the line if she doesn't move quickly and get back on track. But this hinting at urgency never results in any sort of direct action, which makes the story overall feel very long and drawn out for something with such high stakes.	General Malaise
I can cut Noche some slack, since she's grieving. And, you know, a teenager. But her interpersonal relationships here, even with those facts in mind, were just so frustrating to read. She doesn't want to share her secret with her best friend. She also doesn't want to listen to him when he needs to confide in her. She doesn't want to think about her girlfriend, even though she's constantly thinking about her girlfriend. And she doesn't want to process new feelings as they arise either. So it's all deny, tuck away, and repress. Which I guess makes sense, but boy is it frustrating to read!	Interpersonal Foibles
This book places a very strong emphasis on moving on after a loss, which is neither here nor there. But moving on romantically after losing your first love so quickly (like, less than 6 months later) feels... like not the right move. It almost feels like a prescription: Oh, you'll feel better if you can just get over it and move on to the next crush who drifts into town. Noche wrestles with her feelings for somebody else, sure, so it's not like the speed she's moving on isn't acknowledged. But I don't really like the precedent this speed sets, especially in a book written for a younger audience. Like, it's okay to sit with your grief for a bit. It's okay to not be okay.	Moving On?

Rating

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
7/10

Fans of Dustin Thao's You've Reached Sam will like this new protagonist wrestling with young love and heavy grief. Those who loved Aiden Thomas's Cemetery Boys will like diving into a new Latinx take death and ghosts and the afterlife.

Details Publisher: Knopf Books for Young Readers Date: January 28, 2025 Series: N/A Add to Goodreads Buy it HERE

Note: I was provided with an ARC by the publisher through Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. All opinions here are my own.