Archive for the ‘Silvia Moreno-Garcia’ Category
Oh this book!
What started out as a cute little adventure story, turned into the most wonderful hero(ine)’s journey!!
yes, I admit, when I first started reading Gods of Jade and Shadow, I was like “this is super cool, 1920s Mexico, we’ve got a fun adventure starting, looks like there could be some cute romance happening here”. and for the first half of the book, that sorta is, what is happening. AND THEN.
Lemme tell you ALL about it!
Because reasons, Casiopea Tun has a bit of Cinderella situation going on. She and her Mom live with their extended family, but Casiopea is treated like a servant. She cooks, cleans, goes to the market, runs errands for her awful cousin (is he that awful? really? actually YES), and takes care of her angry, bitter grandfather. She dreams of a way out of this life, but can’t see one. this is starting out very fairy tale-ish, yes?
one day, when the family is on an outing, having left Caseopea at home, as a punishment, she takes special notice of an old trunk in her grandfather’s bedroom. And she opens the trunk.
What’s in the trunk? oh, only the bones and soul of Hun-Kame, Lord of Xibalba, and one of his bone shards gets lodged in Casiopea’s hand. no biggie, right? He can just, remove the shard, and then he can go back to Xibalba to dethrone his brother, and then Casiopea can pretend none of this ever happened, right?
hahahaha, NO.
Hun-Kame immediately starts his plan to return to Xibalba and dethrone his brother Vucub-Kame. But first, he must locate his missing left ear, left index finger, and left eye, so that he can be whole again. But what about that bone shard?
The bone shard is part of Hun-Kame, and so long as it remains lodged in Casiopea’s hand, she has a glint of the supernatural about her, the protection of a god. On the literal other hand, the longer it stays in her hand, the more human Hun-Kame becomes. If the shard isn’t removed in time, he will forget who he is, and she will die.
Casiopea and Hun-Kame thus leave on an adventure across Mexico, visiting demi-gods, demons, and other friends of Xibalba, so he can regain his missing body parts before time runs out.
Sounds serious, isn’t it?
Ok, so I’m sure this book wasn’t planned to be cute and adorable and funny and flirty and heartwarming, but it was all of those things. I’ll bet this book was planned to have an amazing ending that was an absolutely joy to read, and it was that too.
See, here’s the thing:
Casiopea is a good Catholic girl. She shouldn’t be alone with a man in a train compartment, especially a man she isn’t related to. She doesn’t even know this guy! But. . . Hun-Kame is not a man, he is a Lord of Xibalba. So it’s ok, right?
and Hun-Kame has no idea how to talk to mortals. he has no idea how to talk to women. He also has no idea how a train schedule works. For goodness sake, he doesn’t know what coffee is! To me, he was adorably clueless.
Watching the two of them travel across Mexico was the most adorable and heartwarming thing I’ve seen in ages. in AGES.
the Little Red Reviewer 
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