A review by crystalisreading
Gods of Jade and Shadow by Silvia Moreno-Garcia

adventurous dark emotional mysterious
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

Gods of Jade and Shadow by Silvia Moreno Garcia is a beautiful story, full of duality. Both bitter and sweet, fully fantastical, and yet firmly grounded in reality, full of Mayan deities and Jazz age Mexican humans, demons and magical creatures and tedious chores and impossible dreams. Moreno-Garcia allows us to hope impossible dreams along with the gods and humans who dream them, even though we know we cannot have them, and to break our hearts a little with theirs when we cannot have them. I’ve struggled to read consistently in this year of our pandemic 2020, but read this pretty consistently once I started, and found myself fully engrossed every time I picked it back up.

The world building is rich yet not tedious. The author manages to introduce readers to Mayan mythology and Jazz Age Mexico in vivid, rich detail that never bogs down or bores, never dumps lengthy passages of information on the reader. Instead, we learn as we are are compelled to follow, much like the practical dreamer Casiopea is, one of the twin Mayan gods of Death, Hun-Kame, as he seeks to reclaim his stolen throne in the Underworld. Along the way we experience both rural and urban Jazz Age Mexican culture, and see the effects of American culture on it, with flappers and music and technology. We meet demons and undead and monsters and flawed humans. Everyone is flawed and complex in this story, from Casiopea’s cruel and selfish family, to undead seductresses, to corrupt wizards, to friendly demons, to traitorous deities, to Casiopea herself. No one is perfectly good or perfectly evil, and the story is richer for it.

The relationship that builds between Casiopea and Hun-kame is electrifying and beautiful and sweet and sad. No human can truly love the god of death, can they? Nor can a god of death return that love. And yet we hope, because their relationship is so beautiful and so real. I feared the ending of this story, because bittersweet stories aren’t my usual preference, but like the rest of this book, the ending was perfect, everything it should be, deeply satisfying and perfectly aligned with the rest of the story.

In a year when I struggle to read, and often find myself underwhelmed by even much-anticipated books, Gods of Jade and Shadow stands out from the crowd as a fantastic book. Effortlessly diverse, beautifully written, deeply emotional, and always engaging. I am extremely grateful to #NetGalley and Random House Publishing for sharing a free digital #advancedcopy of #GodsofJadeandShadow with me in exchange for my honest review. I highly recommend this book. 
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