I received an eARC of this book from the publisher through Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.
I really wanted to love this book, I was super intrigued by the mix of multiple cultures to create the mythos of this world, and the magic channeled by music. The author’s love for the cultures involved was obvious, but things became so complicated within the story he tried to weave that the cultures and love got buried underneath increasingly confusing supernatural occurrences and lore.
I found the characters outside of Mateo to be uncompelling and underdeveloped and I struggled to care about their journeys or their eventual fates. I also struggled with the scope of this book. At first, the community it centers on is introduced as a diaspora community from an island spawned from three main cultures where they worship three main deities. However, as the book unfolds the mythos becomes more complex and contradictory and I struggled to follow what was happening as the conflicts became more tangled and complicated as new elements were added into what was originally a simple conflict between past and present in the community. I spent more time confused while reading than enjoying this story which is unfortunate given how excited I was originally to read this book.