Brooklyn Brujas
Young Adult Fiction
Brooklyn Brujas
2018
EBook ARC
352
Still feeling broken after her family's battle in Los Lagos, Lula invokes a dark spell to bring her boyfriend and others back after a fatal bus crash, but unwittingly raises an army of hungry, half-dead casimuertos, instead.
This book is the ownvoices, and something you don’t see a lot of in the book world. If you are wanting something fresh, possibly a setting you may not be as familiar with and also stuff with supernatural things like vampires and zombies, look no further! Well, actually yes look a little further.. to book one and start there because this is book two. So look to book one and THEN look to this book!
This book was such a ride. I have to tell you, something I love about 2018 is the fact that a lot of books are coming out with the underlining story being something along the lines of a familial bond and how important they are and how self love is one of the most important things to being happy. The sister’s bond and strength in this book, Lula, Alex and Rose, is something that I really connected with. My sister and I are pretty close as well, and I always feel a strong pull to stories that have a focal on sisters.
I was a little put off by this being a sequel told in a different view, Lula instead of her sister Alex, but I slowly did come to enjoy the book. I did not connect to Lula well, and I am not actually sure why. I think it might have been more of the writing for me than the actual character. Some writing styles I can’t get on board with, which is nothing against the author at all. That only means that what doesn’t work for me, may REALLY work for you.
Lula’s journey to finding herself and loving who she finds is something every person, no matter your gender or race or age or orientation, should learn from. More books need to contain aspects of self love and the struggle to get to that point.
Something that I thought really was portrayed well, was the PTSD. The PTSD was translated to the reader really well, which is something I think is hard to do as an author. It is hard to take how one person reacts to something, and have it work for anyone who picks up your book and have them be inspired. If you read the snippet at the top, you see that Lula deals with a lot of deaths in this book. A lot of her friends and loved ones die in a crash and she can’t heal them even though healing is basically what she defines herself as.
Side Note: I also think that finding out that “even though you have a healing power, you can’t heal everything” is something that can be taken as a learning point to anyone. Like even for boring people like me who’s only super power is getting all cats to sit on my lap. I took it as “Even though you are a great listener, you can’t fix everyone’s problems,” which is something that I personally struggle with more than I should. Maybe it should also be “even though you have great skills at getting cats to love you, maybe don’t jump the fence at the zoo in hopes the tiger will cuddle with you”.
In conclusion, I do believe this is a series that young-teen readers should dive into. Not only does it touch on grief and PTSD, but it also shows you how important familial and self love are to be happy. Be aware though, there are some graphic scenes with self-harm, gore, deaths and … well a lot of death.
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