A review by erickabdz
The Storm Runner by J.C. Cervantes

2.0

Why couldn’t anyone just provide a straight answer, preferably with a step-by-step diagram?

[b:The Storm Runner|34966353|The Storm Runner (The Storm Runner, #1)|J.C. Cervantes|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1521232348l/34966353._SY75_.jpg|56241336] was definitely something. I think the main reasons I didn't like it as much as I think I would be the following:

1) I had too many expectations. I have been in love with Mayan culture for too many years, fascinating by it, and when I knew a book recommended by Rick Riordan himself, written by a woc, would come out I was running in circles in happiness. The bar was just too high; I don't blame J.C. Cervantes for not being at the level of one of my favourite authors (that has lots of extra years of experience), but you could see clearly that this was trying too hard to be in Percy Jackson's style and it just didn't make it.

2) Characters. I could give it a pass on characterization, but in general, they were disappointing. J.C. Cervantes had a good intention, but I couldn't oversee the insistence in making tall, ~bronze~ skinned, and slim equal to handsome, especially when talking about Mayan gods... that are part of Latin-American culture...? I think I read one (1.0) name that sounded Hispanic. Would have loved that the heritage of the characters came in more ways than dropping random Spanish words in conversations. Also, the "romance" between Zane and Brooks made me feel. Nothing.

Also, there is an important discussion about the ableism in this book that I don't feel qualified to talk about, but please do check out some of these reviews: x, x.

3) THE LACK OF MAYAS. Like. This especially. I don't know if any of the secondary characters were Maya, but if they were there was not much confirmation? Like, this book is about Mayan culture and we got zero from them. I don't think many people know that Mayas still exists; they live in Mayan communities and talk in Maya and some of them struggle with poverty. This could have been an extremely good form of bringing awareness to it but I hope, really hope, gets explored in the next instalments of this series. It's too important to be left in a corner.

With #3 comes the lack of Mexico and Latin America in general. It's just too obvious that the focus for this book was an American audience, but it had too much of usa and it hurt my soul. Also, Mayans did a lot of very cool things, could we read about them, please?

4) Too many liberties were taken. I don't know how to talk about this point. Like just so many of the story decisions felt wrong in my heart. I can see that Cervantes did her research, but I wonder how much she decided to take into consideration while writing her story.

Edit to add at this point: Cervantes never explained why the gods moved from Mexico to usa and it made me deeply uncomfortable every time I had to read "Jordan" or "Mat". I died inside.

In general, this wasn't a bad book. It was entertaining, not quite as a Riordan's book but surely getting there. But there is still a lot of work to be done, especially in terms of the diversity it is trying to portray, and I'm not sure if I'll be reading if it gets better at some point.