Labyrinth Lost (Brooklyn Brujas #1)

There are quite a bit of Spanish words this narrator couldn\’t pronounce, which sometimes ruined the flow of the book. As a Spanish speaker, I think this is really important. Please cast someone who can pronounce Spanish words.

Didn\’t make that much sense. I wanted to like it because of the diversity and culture behind it but all that rich mythology was squashed into obstacles for the (very whiny and not very smart) protagonist. Great idea, badly written.

It\’s quite incredible that I actually enjoyed this book. You see, it started with three strikes against it. 1, it\’s urban fantasy, which I very rarely enjoy. 2, it\’s written in first person, which drives me nuts. 3, it\’s written in present tense, which is almost never done well and almost always feels like a gimmick to create artificial immediacy (and usually fails to do so). So, you might ask, why did I read this book? Well, 2 reasons. 1, I\’m trying to branch out into books I wouldn\’t normally read. And 2, I\’m a long time listener of the Writing Excuses podcast and they recommended this book a while back. So here we are. To start things off, the narrator was quite good. She has a good assortment of voices, well chosen pacing and tempo, and skillful vocal inflections. My one complaint is the inconsistency (or, to be more accurate, global consistency) of her accents. Every character speaks the Spanish words with the correct accent, but no character speaks in accented English. In fairness, no one is described as doing so, by some characters felt to me as though they should/would. Okay, the story did start a bit slowly with a slice of Alex\’s daily life. However, once the story starts moving there is a lot of action, intrigue, and fascinating mythology. There is a relatively obvious twist near the end and a sweet, if predictable, romance. I spent a fair portion of the book not being overly fond of Alex, as willful ignorance is something that really irritates me. In the end, though, she redeems herself and becomes a wonderful character. I\’m not certain if I\’ll continue the series, as I\’m still hesitant to willfully enter into a book with three strikes against it from the get go. But we shall see.

I loved it, but I admit I struggled with some parts. I loved that it was a story by, for and centered on latinx culture. I adored that Alex, the mc, was bisexual and liked both her love interests were of color, despite one of them being passing. It was also cool that she was reluctant to be a receiver of her great power, and wasn\’t just \”ready\” like a bunch of ya books. The parts I struggled with only centered on the way eurocentric features were exhaulted over the latter. Nova had blue-green eyes, and his features were often described with much more flattering tags than brown eyes and skin. Alex even went as far to say she was plain because she had brown eyes. Sigh… As an afro-latinx person, I totally understand our culture does blend a number of cultures, but a lot of the black people were in passing, had skin described as food or night, or were kind of magical negros(I\’m sure it wasn\’t intentional). It may not be as obvious to non-black latinx folx, but you can always tell by the description tags when an author isn\’t black. I would\’ve given it a five had it not been for that. I loved it so much, its just when it rubs you wrong, it affects your feeling about the story. Before I go though, I loved that Rishi, Alex\’s bestie and crush was Indo-Guyanese, you hardly ever see desis of Guyanese origin in mainstream novels. For those curious, Alex is Mexican and Puerto Rican (with Ecuadorian and Panamanian origin) because I\’m Caribbean afro-latinx, so I like to know that kind of thing. This reminded me of Disney\’s Brave, and Brave was so amazing, do that\’s a testament to how much I enjoyed!

This story is beautiful. I really like it a lot, I totally recommend it, also the performance was so good.

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