Rating: 3/5
What It’s About:
The Jazz Age is in full swing, but Casiopea Tun is too busy cleaning the floors of her wealthy grandfather’s house to listen to any fast tunes. Nevertheless, she dreams of a life far from her dusty small town in southern Mexico. A life she can call her own.
Yet this new life seems as distant as the stars, until the day she finds a curious wooden box in her grandfather’s room. She opens it—and accidentally frees the spirit of the Mayan god of death, who requests her help in recovering his throne from his treacherous brother. Failure will mean Casiopea’s demise, but success could make her dreams come true.
In the company of the strangely alluring god and armed with her wits, Casiopea begins an adventure that will take her on a cross-country odyssey from the jungles of Yucatán to the bright lights of Mexico City—and deep into the darkness of the Mayan underworld.
Goodreads
The Review
Gods of Jade and Shadow has been on my TBR for a long time. I decided to finally read it for our Hispanic Heritage book club meeting. This review is going to be on the shorter side as I work my way out of a blogging slump. So I’m going use bullet points to talk about what I liked and didn’t like.
What I liked:
- the setting – 1920’s Mexico
- the contrast of traditional Mexican fashion vs the new jazz age fashion
- the Mayan legends and folkore
- an indigenous Mexican female protagonist
What I didn’t like:
- the romance was unbalanced – sometimes I was into it and sometimes it just didn’t fit right
- The traveling between different settings and locations was jarring – each setting was described in alot detail but then the characters soon took off to another location.
One thing that I love about Silva Moreno-Garcia in general is how she blends horror or fantasy with historical Mexico. It’s great to see a Latina author among these genres! I’ve read Mexican Gothic, which was a great spooky read. I also have Certain Dark Things, and a few of her short stories on my kindle that I still need to read.