I loved how this book expanded the world and made jade a political problem in foreign countries, it really built on book one in a realistic way. 

I picked this book up because it was immediately available on Libby and had such a high star rating. However, this book is receiving only 2 stars from me, not because I didn’t enjoy it but because by the end I knew something was amiss and in doing so looked into the author. I find it alarming when people choose to try and represent a community they are not a part of, even if it is done in earnest; simply because it leads to stereotypes and misinformation. Cummins writes an extremely dramatic telling of migration out of Mexico to escape cartel violence, and yet is not Mexican, nor a migrant. While I have no doubt doing the proper work to write a story that isn’t your own, credit and compensation are due to those that provide that insight. While it sounds as though Cummins gives minimal credit to those she interviewed, it does not go beyond that. Migration stories ARE dangerous for a number of reasons and taking people’s stories to retell them in a fake, overblown manner doesn’t help with the problem, nor does it help those who provided you the insight you needed to craft the story. 

This book had me often recalling the plot line of yellow face. There may be some people out there thankful for the representation regardless of who it comes from, but when it ultimately comes down to it, someone with real life experiences, even if it just having lived in Mexico (Cummins has not) can write a better, more truthful, narrative about migrants; one that likely deserves the money and press this one did. 

I am not going to list book suggestions in place of this book, because many latinx authors and reviewers already have but I highly suggest going that direction if you are interested in this material. 

I think this is the best one so far, at no point did I have any idea where things were going but in a good way 

I have not been this excited to keep reading a series since the daevabad trilogy! 

This was so good, 4.75/5

I kept reading this because I was intrigued but it kept descending into chaos of not knowing even a little bit of what was going on… and then I’d be annoyed and it would sprinkle in one chapter that made me want to know what was going to happen and it continued that way until the end. 

Rick Riordan’s review of this book says the ending is “perfectly jagged” and I have to agree, and I want to know where the characters go from here. 

I wanted to enjoy this but the only thing I could think the entire time is how it destroyed my liking towards Harrison Ford even though that wasn’t even the goal