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A review by asphodelic
The Shadow Crosser by J.C. Cervantes
1.0
SERIES AS A WHOLE (Unpopular opinion): A lot of times I find that fantasy authors get too engrossed in the lore and mechanics and forget about the fundamentals of character writing. I never got a real sense of who anyone was - Even the narrator, Zane. To me his voice was so bland and unmemorable.
The books felt very disjointed from each other. There were parts of each one that I enjoyed: Ah-Puch in The Fire Keeper, the destiny strands in The Shadow Crosser, to name just a couple. But in the end "The Storm Runner" trilogy ends up feeling like a very watered down Percy Jackson. This felt particularly so with the shadow crossing dialogue on page 288 which was extremely derivative of the dialogue with Nico at the end of The House of Hades. Cervantes's decision to employ time travel was also...a choice.
I really only stuck with the series to learn more about Aztec and Mayan mythology, which I did. So in that aspect, Cervantes did her job. But do those deities have the same lasting impact as La Llorona from Paola Santiago or Poseidon from Percy Jackson? Definitely not.
The books felt very disjointed from each other. There were parts of each one that I enjoyed: Ah-Puch in The Fire Keeper, the destiny strands in The Shadow Crosser, to name just a couple. But in the end "The Storm Runner" trilogy ends up feeling like a very watered down Percy Jackson. This felt particularly so with the shadow crossing dialogue on page 288 which was extremely derivative of the dialogue with Nico at the end of The House of Hades. Cervantes's decision to employ time travel was also...a choice.
I really only stuck with the series to learn more about Aztec and Mayan mythology, which I did. So in that aspect, Cervantes did her job. But do those deities have the same lasting impact as La Llorona from Paola Santiago or Poseidon from Percy Jackson? Definitely not.