Thursday, May 6, 2021

SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: Labyrinth Lost by Zoraida Córdova

 


Labyrinth Lost is the start of Zoraida Córdova's YA fantasy trilogy: Brooklyn Brujas.  The title of the series is a bit misleading - this first book features very little of Brooklyn and instead is mostly a portal fantasy that takes place in a fantasy world.  But the story does feature a fantasy magic world filled with Brujas (and Brujos) inspired by Latin-American (and the author's Ecuadorian background) culture.  I've read one prior book by Córdova which I enjoyed a bit, so I was curious to try out this finished series in audiobook at some point.  

And Labyrinth Lost is a pretty enjoyable YA portal fantasy.  It takes a pretty classic YA fantasy portal fantasy plot that will remind you of probably a million other stories, but bases its magical world on a non-English culture and features a really strong lead character.  And while a lot of it is very predictable it does enough differently to keep me invested and to make me interested in continuing to the next book in the series.  It never really reaches a level that makes me definitely WANT to recommend it to more adult readers, but it's still very enjoyable so I can hardly complain.

Note: I read this book in audiobook format, and the reader is very good, so I recommend the book in that format.

-----------------------------------------Plot Summary---------------------------------------------------------
Alejandra "Alex" Mortiz is the middle child in a family of three daughters.  And not just an ordinary family, but a family of Brujas, with Alex's mother and older sister Lula possessing healing powers and Alex's younger sister Rose having psychic and dreamwalking powers.  As for Alex - she awakened her powers years ago in spectacular fashion and the result seemed to drive away her father in fear, leading her to hide her powers from her family.  Alex wishes she didn't have those powers and could get rid of them...but when a boy at school hurts her best friend Rishi, her powers explode out once more and this time there's no way she can hide them.  

For Alex seems to be an Encantrix, the most powerful type of Bruja - capable of performing any magic whatsoever.  And so her family immediately plans for Alex to have her Death Day, the celebration where she will be blessed by the spirits of her dead ancestors, to solidify her power.  But Alex decides to use a spell instead to give away her power.....only the spell goes horribly horribly wrong, casting her entire family - living and dead - into another dimension known as Los Lagos.  

To save them, Alex will have to rely on the help of Nova, a rude bad boy Brujo whose knowledge of the Bruja world, and Los Lagos, make him the only one who can possibly help her get to and through Los Lagos to save her family.  But Los Lagos is a land filled with dangerous beings, not just the monster who took her family, and to get through it she may need to do the one thing she never wanted...and embrace the magic as part of herself....
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Labyrinth Lost features a modern world in which there is a hidden community of Brujas/Brujos (Spanish for "witches") even in the United States, or more particularly in Brooklyn.  The Brujas live in secret, for fear of some seemingly long gone hunters, and their culture is derived in large part from Latin American culture - from the veneration of their ancestors, who literally come back as spirits to provide them with a blessing on their death days, to the forms of the deos (Gods) they worship.  Córdova has done a really strong job transplanting these elements of real Latin American culture into the culture of these brujas, and it works really well....even before we enter the fantasy world of Los Lagos.  

Also helping is how strong of a lead character Alex is.  The middle child of three, Alex is kind of introverted and doesn't make friends easily - in large part due to the fact that she always feels she has to hide who she is.  She loves her siblings dearly, but at the same time she feels a bit apart from them by her fear of her own magic and her guilt over what she believes was her own driving away of her father.  She's bisexual, but it's not like there are any guys or girls she feels comfortable talking to other than her best friend Rishi....who she can't tell about the world of magic that she's secretly part of.  And so when she accidentally casts her entire family into Los Lagos, the only person she can turn to help is Nova, who may be startlingly attractive to her in his bad boy appearance, but who also is hard for her to deal with due to his brusque attitude and coming from the street (which makes him a lot less happy dealing with a girl who he sees as having it all).  But all of Alex's motivations come from wanting not to be a burden and so when her attempt to give away her power goes wrong, she is desperate to make up for it all, and her guilt is really believable, especially as it intertwines with her difficulty in dealing with others.  

And that makes Alex, along with Nova and eventually Rishi, a really strong guide character through the Portal Fantasy world of Los Lagos.  The very structure of the plot is pretty classic - Alex and her friends are forced into a portal fantasy world that is ruled by an evil enemy who has designs on our mortal world, who has made life miserable for the denizens of the world of Los Lagos over ages, and who Alex must confront and defeat in order to save her family.  Along the way Alex will encounter the different denizens of Los Lagos, some friendly some not, and will have to find a way forward on her quest before it's too late.  It's a story path that's as old as time, and can be incredibly predictable (there's a sequence where Alex encounters a group of fae who are clearly enchanting them that goes on for a bit too long), but it's executed particularly well, with the elements coming not from English culture but from Spanish/LatAm cultures, which gives it some originality.  And some elements, such as the romance element, really did surprise overall.  

Again there's nothing here that's truly special, and the familiar form of the narrative prevents this book from really making any leaps into truly great territory, even as it also allows for a satisfying narrative and ending in a single package for this book.  But there's enough here to be worth reading for young adult readers, and I will be trying the sequel to see how plot threads left open are dealt with later in this book.  
 

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