Ah, there is none more fearful of thieves than the one who has stolen something, and a kingdom is no small something.
Gods of Jade and Shadow
by Silvia Moreno-Garcia
Genre: Historical Fantasy
About: Casiopea knows how to starch shirts, polish shoes, pick up the groceries and keep her dreams to herself. She lives in a small village with her small-minded family; adventure seems as far away from her as the stars she watches at night. Until, that is, she opens the mysterious locked chest of her grandfather's and releases a God of Death, and he has vengeance on his mind.
The Good
The setting is great. It's Mexico in the 1920s, intertwined with Mayan mythology. I loved how easily the fantastical fused with a post-revolution country and the stark differences between village and city life. Casiopea blends all of these cultures seamlessly together. She's been brought up in a village, Cinderella-esque style, but has secret modern city dreams, then she's thrown into the world of demons, ghouls and gods, and this, too, she navigates easily enough. I liked the connection between her and Hun-Kame (an exiled God of Death), especially how creepy it begins with his bone shard literally embedded in her finger, draining away her life slowly but surely.
The Bad
I didn't exactly dislike the writing style: it's intentionally formal/narratorly-sounding and has some beautiful descriptions and metaphors. However, I felt a little distant from all the characters because of this style. It's supposed to be in third-person, jumping between Casiopea, Martin, Hun-Kame and Vucub-Kame's POVs, but it switches too quickly and I never really felt entirely in one character's head. The pace is also very fast, racing through a cast of characters and locations. I would have preferred sinking my feet in one character's shoes and staying in a single place with them for longer.
The Somewhat Iffy
While we're very clear on Hun-Kame's mission, Vucub-Kame's plan is not so clear cut. He's had decades on his side, but everything seems to be left to chance and spurred on at last because of his brother's awakening - I couldn't understand why he hadn't made steps towards his world vision while his brother had been clean out of the way. And Casiopea seemed to have a good motivation at the beginning (the whole not-wanting-to-die thing) but towards the end, I didn't feel what exactly was pushing her to complete the quest, she just seemed to keep defying her enemies without a clear end goal. Perhaps the threat of her enemies wasn't stark enough, or her dreams of the future not tangible enough for me as a reader to grasp onto.
Overall
It reads more like a Middle-Grade Fantasy to me than Adult. I think there was a lot of potential for a darker novel full of twists and deceptions, but in actuality this is a more innocent adventure with a quick-fire quest and some good lessons learned by the end. The writing is beautiful, but a very particular style that you don't so much connect with as let it wash over you as though a dream.
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