The writing in this book is unparalleled, in my opinion, compared to Maggie’s other work. It is lyrical, grandly detailed, aesthetically pleasing, and The writing in this book is unparalleled, in my opinion, compared to Maggie’s other work. It is lyrical, grandly detailed, aesthetically pleasing, and overall reads in such a poetic manner, it’s worth it to read this book for the writing alone, it’s that beautiful. The overall story, though, the characters, plot, and story arc all fall to the wayside. The world is very one-dimensional, as are the characters. The mythology and world building is intense and richly fleshed out, but I’ll touch on this more later. Let’s get to the part I’m sure everyone is most curious about: how well did a white American author write a magical realism story about Mexican-Americans involving a cast of POC characters and a folklore, culture, and religion that are not her own? Well, to be quite frank, I believe she actually did a decent job. Hear me out. (Just a reminder, I’m a Puerto Rican-American girl who holds Latinx culture very near and dear to my heart; however, I’m by no means an expert on the mythology and folklore of other cultures. This portion of the review is simply my perspective as a Latinx person on the matter of a non-Latinx person writing a story centered around Latinx culture and folklore.) (How many times have I said/will I say Latinx in this review? Who knows. Drinking game idea, take a shot every time you see the word Latinx.) (Please don’t actually do that, it’s a terrible idea and an even worse joke.) While this is certainly not a shining example of Latinx culture, or for that matter, Southwestern Latin-American culture, it isn’t as if Maggie blatantly used derogatory terms or typecast her characters. Maggie very evidently did her research and incorporated Mexican and Southwestern American folklore into the story in a beautiful and haunting way. The concept of Saints in the story seem to be rooted in Mexican folk saints, consisting of patron saints who were actual people at one point in time, sanctified by their martyring or good deeds. This seems to align with the ideas of the Sorias producing one Saint each generation who holds the ability to perform miracles. Owls are prevalent in the story, appearing every time a miracle is imminent. In Mexican folklore, owls are symbols of the patron saint of Death – Nuestra Señora de la Santa Muerte (Our Lady of Holy Death) – as well as being the messengers and companions of the gods of death in Mayan and Aztec myth. There also exists a folk tale, the legend of the Lechuza, wherein a woman sells her soul to the devil and becomes a screech owl at night. Monarch butterflies and coyotes, among other prevalent images in the book, are also large components of Mexican folklore and superstition. However despite all this, my main critique of this book is how it just has this overall feeling of otherness. I felt alienated from the story, from the characters, hell, from the culture – and I am a Latina-American myself. It’s one thing to read a book about Latinx culture, written by an author of Hispanic descent, and see yourself represented well and true. That unfortunately wasn’t the case here – it seemed very evident that it was written by an outside perspective. I felt so far removed from these characters that I couldn’t form attachments to them or the story, I didn’t find myself really connecting. What’s more is the undercurrent of stereotyping. Beatriz is nicknamed “la ella sin sentimientos” which directly translates to “the girl without sentiments” or “emotions”. Though it may not seem prevalent, a humongous stereotype of Latinx women is their loud personality and overall lack of emotion or attachment; often accompanied with an overarching tone of anger or bitterness. We are seen as being cold and uncaring, emotionally detached, because of the precedent that has been set where Latin women hide their true feelings for fear of being seen as “crazy” or aggressive when they express their true emotion. This phenomenon can be seen across media outlets, television, and film alike. Studies on the topic have been performed across the United States, interviewing women of color of various income levels, professions, and backgrounds. Television and news media can play a big role in the perpetuation of this stereotype, too, and only results in the normalization of using Latinx qualities, cultures, backgrounds, and histories as the poorly timed butt of a joke not everyone seems to be in on. Whether it’s being used as a punchline or simply typecasting characters in cookie cutter roles, Latinx culture; or any other culture, for that matter, should never have to experience that. It’s dehumanizing, it’s degrading, and whether it is intentional or not is irrelevant – its existence alone only serves to perpetuate the use of stereotypes to keep other cultures in submissive positions. I also noticed a slight undercurrent of white savior syndrome, wherein the girl without emotions has her heartstrings tugged at; but that involves spoilers, so I will leave it at that. Honestly, it could just be coincidence it was written that way, or simply just subconscious conditioning to write characters in this manner, but either way it grinded my gears a little bit. It felt so unnecessary, it contributed little to nothing to the plot, and overall it was a little bit uncomfortable to witness a purportedly emotionless girl try to figure out what these feelings toward a stranger all meant. Overall, was it a good book? I think so. It was incredibly well-written, had Maggie’s signature air of whimsy and unique sense of mythology, and it told an intriguing story. The downsides were the small misrepresentations and the fact that I couldn’t really connect to the characters themselves or sense any motivations in their journeys. From a cultural perspective, it seemed very evident to me that it was written by someone who had little experience with this culture beyond a few vacations and some trips to the library for extensive research of folklore and myths. It's for these reasons I gave it the rating of 3 stars. Honestly, the writing alone gives it 5 stars because I enjoyed the writing of it so much. But the content itself was a bit lackluster and the most obvious trait was that it was written by someone on the outside of a culture looking in. That knocked down the rating to the average 3 stars. I struggled to find a way to rate this for a while, before realizing I just had to separate the art itself from the artist -- the art being the writing, the artist being a white woman writing POC stories. While it wasn't anywhere near being racist or awfully biased, the stereotyping and lack of knowledge of the people within the culture was still there, and resulted in a dry story arc with flat characters, embellished with beautiful writing and a story told in the details. These two contrasting ideals landed it the 3-star rating, smack in the middle. ...more
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