Ok, I'm going to gush about this book! I loved it!
First of all, it smashes so many middle grade "norms" in the first chapter. It deals with philosophy, which most middle grade doesn't touch with a 10-foot pole. It's rather grim, with a random girl's life at stake from the beginning. And the protagonist has little or no agency by design. And, this is huge, It doesn't start from the point-of-view of the middle-grade aged main character, 11-year-old Clara.
Instead it starts with immortal beings, Life and Death, meeting for a game of Loteria in Oaxaca City. Loteria is played using a card, like a Bingo card, divided into distinct images in boxes. Players need to get 4 boxes in a row to win. They deal cards from a deck, each one illustrated with the images on the game board and place a dried bean in the corresponding box when the image matches the card drawn.
But before the immortal beings can begin to play, they must choose the stakes -- a life. If Life wins, the person is released from the game to live on. If Death wins, the person dies over the course of the game.
Elegantly dressed Death, also known as Catrina, claps her hands and her deadly black smoke wends its way through the crowd, the streets, the homes until it finds and settles on Clara.
From that point forward, Clara's life is in the cards -- literally. And the cards are merciless, killing her best friend's mom and dragging the boy down with the Devil.
All the while, Life and Death debate -- does Clara have any free will? Are all her choices just a series of predetermined responses to previous events? Life argues she does, Catrina argues she doesn’t.
And a bird takes off with a card, unbeknownst to any of the Loteria players.
What Clara does, after being dragged down to the bowels of the Earth and learning she’s a pawn in the game, surprises everyone.
This was a fantastic read and I can’t recommend it highly enough. Simply awesome.
