Review Detail

Unfortunately, The Seventh Sun is my biggest bookish disappointment of the year.

And *whispers* it is not an Own Voices book.

As a history lover, particularly about my own culture (I am Mexican and I live in Mexico), The Seventh Sun just did not do my people's rich culture & history justice. In fact, this book tried to erase Mexicas. Won't even start on the plot itself (the trials were only TWO and super weak?) and it's the typical storyline with girl-on-girl hate and a perfect main character (Mayana) who is ALWAYS right and has a Christian mentality that doesn't fit at all the time and place of the book.

This is another *gentle* reminder that you CANNOT insert Christian morality/values into a book about ancient civilizations because that is the CONQUEROR'S POV (aka colonialists). This is not right, particularly when the main character is supposedly from those cultures. Again, it's a big NOPE.

And quick history lesson: this story says it is inspired by Aztec mythology, but that's actually wrong. MEXICA mythology inspired this book. It's actually a disservice to call Mexicas "Aztecs" since, in short words, Mexicas were Aztec descendants who were oppressed by them, which led them to abandon their oppressors and later on build their own empire (Tenochtitlán??).

But *sigh*, history loves to erase Mexicas and call them Aztecs. They are not interchangeable and it's sad how everyone keeps making this mistake.

Overall, The Seventh Sun is just hurtful and offensive, it just portrays these ancient civilizations at their worst, just to make way to a character that shows no love or respect to their ways, This is why Indigineous stories should be left alone if you are not part or descended from their community.