Bernie Anés Paz

This is another book where I adore the worldbuilding. It’s just amazing and fresh and new and I love that. The author drew from his Puerto Rican heritage and the worldbuilding is very immersive, which is exactly how I like it, from phrases and slang to title and how they view the world. Even the food and customs reinforced that this is not the typical fantasy setting, and I really appreciated that.

The plot is interesting, though there are a couple pacing fumbles in the second half where information is given that the reader was already given, so I didn’t think that was necessary. (The editing in the first half was really clean, and then there are more minor editing mistakes in the second half too, I noticed. Still, nothing that drew too much attention from the story.) I really appreciated how it was tied into the village life struggles, and I loved the tie-ins to Colibrí and Narune’s relationship as mother and son. I loved how interactions with the sentient tree-lords and the various animals as they fought through the Stillness plaguing their land, and the magic system was interesting (but I’m not a huge magic system person).

I loved learning about the way the world worked and how their society worked at the same time as I was getting a handle on their personal past and their individual dreams. The pacing of the information being doled out was overall well done and the crux of the conflict--a spreading Stillness that kills the land and magic while spawning monsters that must be broken up into dust--was very cool, especially as the Halfborn are really good at this, and yet they’re exiled from the community they’re protecting because the community fears them.

There’s so much lore and so much interesting stuff to get into, and several of the characters were really cool (even if Ixchel made me furious). But you want characters to evoke strong emotions, too, after all! And the cacica also evoked strong emotions, after all.

If you enjoy second world fantasy but are looking for something new, something that’s not the typical medieval European-style fantasy, then try this!… (mais)

It was fine. The book hit all the right beats at the right time. I really liked the trusting relationship between mother and son. I really liked how even though the family were nominally exiles, they had support, some of it not even grudging.

I wasn't huge on the teen trial becoming-an-adult stuff, but I'm also not very into YA so that's not surprising. My biggest complaint was the overuse of the word "nip"/"nipping". I had to mentally retranslate it to the author's meaning every time, and there are other words that would have served the purpose.… (mais)