The following version of this book was used to create this study guide: McLemore, Anna-Marie. The Mirror Season. Feiwel and Friends, 2021.

The novel opens with Graciela remembering a party over the summer after which she brought a drugged boy to the hospital before leaving him there. They were both sexually assaulted at the party, and Graciela cannot bear the questions from the hospital staff. After she leaves him there, she begins finding shards of glass all around her, and the plants around her begin slowly crystallizing. A single shard shatters and embeds itself in her eye, causing a constant reminder of that night and her inability to move forward.

When Graciela returns to school in the fall, she recognizes the boy from the party as a new classmate. His name is Lock, and he is a fellow scholarship student at their upscale private high school. The boys who assaulted Graciela tease Lock at school by placing condoms on his car and inside of his locker. He chooses to prank them back by filling the boys’ locker room with inflated condoms before receiving a punishment from the principal. Graciela feels guilty, so she tries to take the blame for him. The principal orders them to work together on folding the abstinence sex-education pamphlets as a punishment. Graciela’s mother is not upset that she was disciplined at school.

As Graciela and Lock continue getting to know each other, he comes to visit her at her family’s bakery with his little sister, Violet. He still does not know that Graciela brought him to the hospital after the party. He had his stomach pumped that night and does not remember any details.

Graciela’s parents prepare to go on their twentieth anniversary trip to New Mexico. Graciela encourages them to go even while they are nervous to leave her alone because she seems to be struggling emotionally with something. She is not ready to tell either parent about what happened.

Graciela’s mother also encourages her to go to La Noche de las Golondrinas, Swallow Night, even while Graciela finds the tradition silly. Her Mexican heritage separates her from the rich white girls at school who attend the festival, and she does not want to stand out and be othered.

The bullies at school begin blackmailing Graciela with pictures they took the night of the assault, and she grows worried and anxious about what might happen. When she stands up to them, they show the photos to Lock and he learns that they forced Graciela to perform a sex act on him while he was unconscious. Lock distances himself from Graciela.

Graciela and Jess sneak into Victoria’s party to steal back the Polaroids so they can go to the police and finally receive justice. Her magic has slowly come back as she heals and processes the assault. She begins to realize that her magic has only been able to return once she started helping Lock. At the Fiesta de las Golondrinas, the bullies confront Graciela and she scares them away by summoning the Santa Ana winds.

She and Lock go to the police and bring the photos and begin working to repair their relationship slowly.