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Synopsis:

The Mayan god of death sends a young woman on a harrowing, life-changing journey in this one-of-a-kind fairy tale inspired by Mexican folklore.

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.

Review:

Gods of Jade and Shadow is the story of the Lords of Xibalba, the twin brothers Hun-Kame and Vucub-Kame. Hun-Kume is killed in a conspiracy by Vucub-Kame and stuffed into a wooden chest until a curious girl, Casiopea, opens it. Casiopea is living with her grandfather, who’s house it is and who’s bedroom the chest is located, her mother, her aunts, and her cousins on a large estate. Her cousin Martin is a few years older than her and is awful to her, ordering her around, making her run errands for him, and calling her names, She feels like nobody likes her, and she does nothing but chores, gets yelled at, and tries to stay out of trouble. The whole time, Hun-Kume is in the foot locker at the end of her grandfather’s bed, a decapitated skeleton waiting for fifty years. Casiopea reanimates him and he immediately wants revenge against his brother Vucum-Kame for killing him and for taking his eye, ear, finger, jade necklace, and his kingdom. He tells Casiopea that he will give her anything she wants to help him get his items back and to get revenge. This takes them both through the backdrop of Mexico in the 1920s, and as the story moves on, it is more and more obvious that the Gods in this novel are doing nothing but using the mortals as pawns to fight with each other. Gods do not care about the welfare of humans whatsoever. 

I have read a few of Silvia Moreno-Garcia’s novels, and I like her writing and storytelling. Gods of Jade and Shadow is the weakest of the novels that I have read by her. Her stories are well constructed, and the stories that she writes are generally interesting, but there id something about this novel that just did not click with me. I found myself spending most of my time rereading pages because I was much more distracted that normal, counting pages and having my mind wander off while reading. This happens sometimes when I am reading for hours, but in the case of Gods of Jade and Shadow, it happened within minutes. It is not that the novel is boring, the adventure of going around trying to get pieces of a Mayan God should be interesting, but I do not feel like I was ever connected enough to the story to be interested in what happens next. This was a chore to finally get through, but there is also nothing really sticks out as being horrible. The novel just did not have any characters, settings, or plot I could relate to. The really developed characters are Casiopea, a young girl who is enjoying her time away from being treated like a fairy stepsister, mistreated by her family, wanting to fall in love with Hun-Kume, hoping he loves her because he makes her feel like she is better than someone destined to do chores and clean the rest of her life, and her cousin Martin who is just a hateful prick. The rest of the characters in the novel, even with Hun-Kume at Casiopea’s side most of the time, do not feel developed enough for me to find myself interested in anything that they do. 

I do recommend Silvia Moreno-Garcia’s novels, and this might be one that someone else will find more connection with, but if I were to recommend one of her books, I would go with a different choice. I have five more of her novels on my shelf to read, and I hope to get into some more of them before the end of the year. As for now, Gods of Jade and Shadow is my least favorite of her novels.