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bluejayreads's review
Second book in a row with a fantastic historical setting but the writing just didn't do it justice. (I keep wanting to give historical novels a chance, but they're sure not making it easy.) I'm not against a good in media res but this story throws our protagonist into "hero of the people" scenarios without ever establishing that the people care about her, or even know about her. The writing was simplistic, the characters were bland and felt more like cutouts wafting through an admittedly interesting plot than real people with emotions and desires and flaws. For a supposedly anti-colonialism story, the protagonist has a lot of positive words for her colonial-ruler father and so far nothing but criticism for the Indigenous resistance movement. She seems to be doing Zorro-style, Mesoamerican-superhero kind of things without any real motivation to do so - it's cool, to be sure, but I never get the sense that she has any reasoning to do so. And it seems an awful lot of harm to put oneself in the way of without having some very clear reason, either emotional or moral, to go to all the trouble. Which is disappointing because the world is interesting and South/Central America is woefully underutilized as a fantasy setting, especially when history provides so many rich opportunities for mythologies and/or historical events to integrate into the narrative. Unfortunately, it ends up being very much like Neferura - a great idea with mediocre execution.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Colonisation, Death, Injury/Injury detail, and Blood
Moderate: Gun violence
Minor: Death of parent
Execution, arranged/forced marriagemadscientistcat's review against another edition
adventurous
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.5
The tempo and plot feel very young adult, though the violence is certainly not. The familiar plot with a beautiful overlay of indigenous Mexican religion and magic will be appealing to romantasy fans who are interested in a different perspective than the well-tread Eurocentric-style worlds. I appreciated Lares’s introduction and explanation and loved that she used Spanish and Nahuatl unabashedly and with no in-text clarifications.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Racism, Colonisation, Murder, Religious bigotry, Xenophobia, Injury/Injury detail, Death, Death of parent, Grief, and Misogyny
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