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May 25, 2018
One of my favorite elements of this novel was the world building. Drawing on Ecuadorian, Spanish, African, Mexican, and Caribbean backgrounds, Córdova blends folk traditions, syncretic religions like Santeria and other combinations of Catholicism and native religious ideas and practices, with urban Latinx speaking patterns. Everything melded together beautifully to create a rich magical world that feels uniquely Latin American. In many ways it reminded me of J.K. Rowling's use of European magical and folk traditions that influenced the type of magic and creatures that were featured in Harry Potter. On top of the fantastic world building, I loved the themes of familial love, embracing your power, and navigating the "in between". Often fantasy stories feature heroes or heroines from broken families or characters that have grown up without a family. Instead, Alex has a loving, if sometimes irritating, family as well as her extended family and the bruja community. Her father is missing in this book and Alex is convinced he left because of a sinister event while her sisters and mother believe he's merely missing. Despite her father's absence, her family is her world. And after their disappearance Alex fights to find them and save them. Additionally, much like the Akata Witch series that I've reviewed previously, I appreciated the character development in this book. We see Alex at the start of the novel as a shy awkward girl, uncomfortable with her differences and her power. However, by the end of the novel, Alex has learned to embrace who she is and that she is powerful and radiant. *I'm not crying, you're crying!* To me some modern YA fantasy books shy away from demonstrating true character growth, which is why I'm very pleased with the main character in particular. Lastly, throughout the book Alex is in the middle of a crossroads or intersections of different identities, decisions, and desires. I applaud any author that can demonstrate the dichotomies that many people from diverse backgrounds face. Along with being between the non-magical world and world of brujas, Los Lagos itself is a world in between, and she's in between childhood and adulthood. And something I think is important to include here is the fact that, yes there is a love triangle, however, this love triangle is between Alex and a female and a male love interest. This was not explicitly stated anywhere on the synopsis but I think it's an important point. It might be a little spoiler-y but I loved how natural both love interests were. The scenes were normal and not exaggerated. I've read a number of articles that discuss how bisexual relationships are often misconstrued and that bisexual women are often depicted as homewreckers and are supposedly prone to infidelity. All terrible stereotypes. Thus I was really happy to see a bisexual character where their sexuality wasn't the main focus of the story and also was not throw in for drama. My only critique of this book is that I did get a bit tired about hearing how sexy Nova, the brujo, is and how apparently he always seemed to have his shirt off. Don't get me wrong, I love a crush-worthy love interest, it just seemed like the references to his physical attractiveness was too much. Moreover, at just over 300 pages, the plot seemed a bit rushed. The book is jam-packed with world building and character relationships; I wish it could have been slowed down just a bit to allow even more development. Lastly, I saw the plot twist about allegiances a mile off. But that didn't irk me too much because the characters and world were imaginative and endearing.