Thursday, October 5, 2017

Review: Labyrinth Lost (#1) by Zoraida Cordova


Title: Labyrinth Lost (#1)
Author: Zoraida Cordova
Published by: Sourcebooks Fire
Released: 2016
Source: Library

Summary: Alex is one in a long line of brujas and brujos. What makes her different is that she doesn't want her magic. She is actively searching for a way to give it back.
On her deathday, just when she is about to be blest for her magic, Alex does a cantos to give it back. Alex's spell backfires, and her whole family is sent to the dangerous world of Los Lagos.
With the help of a mysterious boy named Nova, Alex must go to Los Lagos to save her family. Los Lagos is plagued by an evil known as the Devourer, and to rescue her family, Alex must beat her.
My Thoughts: Meh. I didn't really enjoy this. When I first started it, I was enjoying it, but the farther I read, the more my enthusiasm started to dim. There are reasons, and I will explain my feelings.
First, I'll focus on what I liked. The cover drew me in. I really liked the skull mask motif and thought it did a good job of fitting with the book theme. Update: This book has a cover change and I can only ask myself why?! The new cover isn't awful, but it's not as pretty, or draws your gaze, like the old cover does. I don't understand cover changes. I also really liked the inside map. It was very detailed and was fun to turn back to to see where the characters were at.
My favorite character has to be Nova. I always tend to like the snarky characters who are usually more complex than the reader thinks at first. Nova is kind of broken, mysterious, funny, and cute. He was the most interesting character to me. I wanted to know more about his life and motivations. He's a very flawed character, which made him interesting.
Now on to Alex. She was boring. Maybe that's why I kind of felt meh about this story, because I felt meh about her. I can't say I really understood her. The whole idea of having magic powers and then not wanting them, that's hard to wrap my head around. I get that Alex's story was about not being sure of herself, and eventually learning to accept what makes her special, but she was just a boring character to me.
This book also offered a weird contradiction to me, it was very fast in its pace, but I read it pretty slowly. I just didn't feel compelled to pick it up and read it. It almost felt like things were happening too fast, that I was thrown here and there. I'm also not sure that I ever loved Los Lagos. This book, and especially the chapters that occurred in the magical setting just felt like a weird dream to me. It was all random flashes of various images, and just not really that interesting. I didn't feel any real danger or fear, and I guess I just didn't care about what was going to happen.
My biggest gripe has to be with the character of Rishi. She was just the biggest waste of space. I didn't understand why she had to accompany Alex on her journey. She wasn't important to the overall story. Everything she was involved in could have happened just as well without her. I also feel like Alex and Nova had this fun, teasing thing going on between them on their journey together, and then Rishi showed up and ruined it. I didn't think she was cute. I didn't think she was funny, she really just shouldn't have been there. I mean, I know the main reason Rishi was included, and that was just to add a bit of diversity when it came to sexuality, but the book didn't really need that. It was already a diverse book just because of the main character and her family. Hate me if you want, but my review, my opinion. Adding all these diverse attributes doesn't make for a better story. Sometimes it can feel so forced and become annoying.
I did think the brujo/bruja aspect was cool. So there's another pro.
All in all, I wasn't really a fan of this read. It wasn't compelling to me. It suffered from a dull main character, a unneeded character (Rishi), and a journey that I just didn't end up caring about. I liked the bruja/brujo aspect and Nova. I might read the sequel just to see what happens, but I wasn't impressed by this first book.
BOOKCITEMENT LEVEL 3.2/5
No Magic For Me

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