I don’t remember when I put this on my holds list, but it has been on there for ages. Completely forgot about it when it finally showed up as available and I was anxious to find out what this story with the title that sounded like all the YA fantasy romance stories was about and why I would have put a hold on it.

The story is set in the early 1900s and follows Cassiopeia, a young woman who is living out a Cinderella-like life in servitude to a family that doesn’t like her much. One day in defiance, she reaches into a forbidden chest in her grandfather’s room and awakens a god who takes her with him to retake his place as ruler of the Xibalba and overthrow the brother who imprisoned him in the first place. But his brother takes his own unwilling champion in Cassiopeia’s abusive cousin, Martin.

This felt very much like a book I might be asked to read for class: One where I liked the read through of it on my own but I had this sense that there were deeper and very intentional themes littered throughout it that were meant to make me learn something. I couldn’t help but feel that my attempts to read it for fun were me reading it somehow incorrectly, but it’s not something that I think anyone else would experience when they read it.

But I did like the world quite a bit. It was a fun look at what the Americas looked like early in the century, and how the mythology of the story could more easily mingle into the culture of the time and the place. The way the worlds were intertwined, despite them existing separately, creating a more ethereal feel to the story as a whole that I appreciated.

Overall it was fun! I enjoyed the experience of reading it and I did think that it was an interesting look at other mythologies that I am not familiar with. I do like the stories about pantheons that mingle with humanity, however that happens, and this was a different take than what I’ve read before. If it sounds interesting, do check it out yourself!