Labyrinth Lost

[psocoptera]

Labyrinth Lost, Zoraida Cordova. YA fantasy about a girl who doesn't want to have magic or participate in her family's magic-centric religion who ends up having to travel to an underworld to get her family back when her attempt to reject her magic goes wrong. I thought this was an interesting premise when I heard about it, but the book really didn't work for me - I had read her desire to escape as authentic and legitimate (maybe the necromancy-and-animal-sacrifice religion you have to lie to your outside friends about really isn't for everyone?), but the story turned out to be all about accepting the role she was expected to play. Plus the underworld journey felt very connect-the-dots and not variable enough in emotional pitch. I kept reading long after the point when I would have given up because I wanted to get to the girl-kissing which I had also heard was in there, but then I didn't like how that was handled either... much more time on the page given to her feelings about the rival male love interest, and I felt like we ended up with "the guy is hot but the girl is trustworthy", which wasn't really the kind of dynamic I'm looking for in teen romance. Alas.