gods of jade and shadow by silvia moreno-garcia
I kind of feel like a proper book review of gods of jade and shadow might somehow diminish my experience of the book... so I think I might pop in a couple thoughts here and there, but mostly I'll use this as a catalog of some favorite quotes.
gods of jade and shadow was my first book by silvia moreno-garcia, and it was just so enjoyable. my brain was on while reading it, of course, but my imagination was even more "on" and I just found myself getting swept away into the story.
Had Casiopea possessed her father's pronounced romantic leanings, perhaps she might have seen herself as a Cinderella-like figure. But although she treasured his old books, the skeletal remains of his collection — especially the sonnets by Quevedo, wells of sentiment for a young heart — she had decided it would be nonsense to configure herself into a tragic heroine.
first off, let me talk about casiopea, the female main character in this novel. I loved how she is characterized – she feels like a real person. maybe her best trait is how grounded and how tough she is. she's resilient, she rolls with the punches, and it makes her extremely likable, a brilliant foil to the unearthly setting she's caught up in. she's decidedly unromantic, practical out of necessity.
"You did not rescue me," Casiopea replied. "I opened that chest. Besides, I wasn't a princess in a tower. I knew I'd get away one way or another, and I was not waiting for a god to liberate me."
but of course, this story is a fairytale, too – one with romance woven in, capable of softening even the least romantic of us. it's the tension between those two sides of her that adds so much depth throughout the story, because we're navigating it a little bit too.
Casiopea was a realist, but her youth also made it impossible to remain rooted to the earth every second of the day. Once in a while she sneaked a line of poetry into her heart, or memorized the name of a star.
I was surprised how easily I got caught up in the story, in a place and time that's utterly unfamiliar, and in folklore that is foreign to me... but the way this book was written – everything felt so tangible.
She held up the orange for him. He extended a hand slowly and grabbed the fruit. At first he simply palmed it and did not attempt to peel it, but then, watching her fingers upon her orange, he began to strip the peel away.
it's hard not to let yourself run away with it. because it's easy to slip into the visceral experience. and because you want to see the possibility too.
And she had to admit to herself that part of what kept her next to him was not just the promise of freeing herself of the bone splinter or a sense of obligation, but the lure of change, of becoming someone else, someone other than a girl who starched shirts and shone shoes and had to make do with a quick glimpse of the stars at night.
it's romantic, and it's romantic in the nicest way, which is to say, in the details. the things that are so small and so subtle, you get to read a million stories into them. just inviting you to let your imagination run wild.
She pressed a cheek against the bed's padded headboard and glanced up at him. Her eyelids felt heavy but she didn't want him to go yet, she wanted him to stay by the bed, looking down at her, his hands in his pockets, an eyebrow quirked.
I would have been utterly obliterated if I had read this when I was seventeen. like, absolutely out to sea. because isn't that exactly how love feels at that age? it's all about the little details, insignificant things that bear so much weight because you're attaching the memory of first time experiences to them.
I loved the way silvia moreno-garcia wrote about place, and the tension between cultural spread (which helps sustain things like tradition) and the cheapening that happens when a culture gets co-opted by the masses. this was a very specific scene, but it stuck with me, because I think anyone who straddles two cultures has gone through this experience, too.
Casiopea, meanwhile, looked at a heavy silver bracelet with black enamel triangles, of the "Aztec" style, which was much in vogue and meant to attract the eye of tourists with its faux pre-Hispanic motifs. It was a new concoction, of the kind that abound in a Mexico happy to invent traditions for mass consumption, eager to forge an identity after the fires of the revolution — but it was pretty.
I also love the way she explained other characters, like martín. don't we all know someone like martín? yet how generously she writes him – never hiding his flawed beliefs, but never withholding some sense of sympathy either... we don't like him, but we can understand how he got to be the way he did.
Martín was reminded of the headmaster at his school, whom he had loathed for his strictures, and did not bother shaking his head this time, merely stared at the man, hating the conversation already, as he did when any situation made him uncomfortable.
like I said, this is not even a real review, because this is a book you should just dive into and enjoy, with all its ups and downs, and whimsy and grounding. it's a picture of love...
Has a god ever abdicated his eternity for a woman? No. Such idiocies cannot be expected of anything immortal. But mortals descend into paroxysms quite often. And what was Hun-Kamé now but half a fool, his voice young, his eye almost bereft of shadows?
the stops and starts and what if's...
If she'd declared them in a loud voice Casiopea would have let them take root inside her, and she could not have that. Instead, she polished them in secret, precious bits that they were, but bits and not wholes. She understood now, his paucity with words.
and the yearning, oh the yearning.
this story is rife with it. the yearning is the best part.
There was sadness in her, of course, but she didn't wish to crack like fine china either. She could not wither away. In the world of the living, one must live.
gods of jade and shadow reminded me of the way I loved to read when I was younger - before we became so reliant on knowing the tropes within a story. you just picked up a book because the description on the back cover looked good, and you let it lead you where it may, lost in some impossible adventure.
Well, I won't die yet, she promised herself. I have plenty of things to do. Swim in the sea, dance at a nightclub, drive an automobile, to name a few. Casiopea was pragmatic, yes, but now that these things were possible, although not probable, she was not going to dismiss them and pretend she did not want them.
I absolutely loved this. 5 stars.