Review | Labyrinth Lost – Zoraida Cordova

I have been wanting to read Labyrinth Lost for quite a while and when I got an eARC for Bruja Born through NetGalley it seemed like the perfect time to read both. The audiobooks for both books are available through my audiobook subscription service so I decided to listen to them. Today I will tell you my thoughts on Labyrinth Lost. Keep on reading to find out more!

Cover

There are a couple of covers out there for this book. The first cover, that I displayed here was actually the reason I was interested in this book in the first place. While I don’t like people on covers, there is something intriguing about this face with the skeleton ‘mask’ on it. I do like the new covers as well but mid-series-cover-changes really annoy me.

Plot

Labyrinth Lost is about Alex, a bruja (not a witch, mind you). When her powers manifest she seems to be one of the strongest brujas in her generation. And she would trade it in a second. In a attempt to get rid of her powers she banishes her whole family to Los Lagos, an in-between land. Alex and Nova, an untrustworthy brujo boy, have to travel to Los Lagos to try and get her family back.

“Spells are for witches. Brujas do cantos.
All brujas are witches but not all witches are brujas.”

What I loved most about this book was the diversity, the whole cast are POC and our main character is bisexual. The story is based on Latinx culture and I highly enjoyed reading about that culture. I haven’t read that much fantasy based on Latinx culture but definitely want to read more now. While the setting was pretty unique the rest of the story wasn’t incredibly unique. There are quite some plot points that are very generic for any YA fantasy. For example the much hated love triangle. As I said, the setting was unique. The first part takes place in Brooklyn but the second and third parts take place in Los Lagos. I think Los Lagos is supposed to be a kind of purgatory and that is the feeling I got from it as well. There are some interesting turns in the story and the ending had me starting the sequel right away!

Characters

Alex is our main character, at first she’s acting a bit like a coward. She’s afraid of her power and instead of talking to her mom or sisters she decides to go along with the idea of a stranger, Nova. Luckily she makes a great development during the story and the Alex we start the story with is very different from the Alex we end the story with. I liked that she came into her power and that she did all she could to save her family. Her crush on Rishi had me rooting for them from the start but as I said, there was a love triangle so we also had Nova. I liked how the triangle as resolved in the end and I can’t be mad about the outcome.

“I’m not the encantrix everyone thought I would be. Right now, I’m just a girl, and there is also magic in that.”

Rishi was a very optimistic character and I liked how supportive of Alex she was. However apart from that I already forgot most about her. She wasn’t that well developed and I would’ve liked to read more about her. Nova was a lot better developed and he was a complex character. It was very interesting to read about him and it was great to learn more about him and his backstory.

The villain was quite interesting as well. I liked how we slowly got to know what was going on in Los Lagos and what had happened with Alex. It all fitted nicely together and I liked our villain!

Worldbuilding

I said it before and I’ll say it again haha. The world in this story is pretty unique and I loved reading about it. Zoraida’s writing style made it all come to life and I could see it all before me. The world was super interesting and I’m happy there are more stories about these brujas to read.

“Not all loves are meant to last forever. Some burn like fire until there is nothing left but ash and black ink on skin.”

After enjoying this one, I immediately started listening to Bruja Born, the sequel. And after finishing that one I realized I had quite a long wait before we’re getting the third book 🙁 Did you read this book, or do you want to? Let me know in the comments!

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