When Ava was born, she was cocooned in her graceful, angel-like wings. Her mother shelters her against the outside world--protective, but isolating. The women of Ava's family have a long history of loving the wrong men; this is as much Ava's mother's story as it is hers. 
 I don't know how to summarize this book, because it's so much less about plot than about characters and emotion, tied together with magic realism and family history. The title really sums up the book perfectly, capturing all the strange and beautiful sorrows (though I'd argue they are of the whole family, not just Ava Lavender).