Bruja Born (Brooklyn Brujas #2) by Zoraida Córdova

Bruja Born by Zoraida Córdova

My Rating: ★★★★

Lula is struggling with the aftermath of her sister, Alex, attempted to get rid of her magic and accidentally banished her entire family from the mortal world instead. Left with facial scars and a fear of noises and shadows, Lula has become bitter and very unlike herself. She still has the love of her life, Maks, in her life… or so she thought. She and Maks become two victims of a terrible bus crash that kills nearly everyone on the bus. Lula survives, but Maks is left in a coma marked for Death herself, but Lula has other plans. Defying the rules of magic and the balance between life and death, she defies Death by bringing Maks back to life with a terrible cost.

I absolutely love the first book in the series, so I was extremely excited when I finally picked up the second one. I love the characters, the story, and the world they live in. One of the most notable differences between the first and the second book is that they’re narrated by different sisters. The first book was narrated by Alex, and now we’re following her sister Lula as she struggles with the events of the first book. She struggles a lot with the physical scars that she’s been left with and talks a lot about how she was always considered very beautiful and now she has scars across her face. This certainly does not help with the emotional aftermath.

One of the things I love about this book is the unconventional take on zombies. Maks and the other characters that are dead are anchored to the living world by Lula, which begins with memory loss and an insatiable hunger for human hearts. We watch Lula and her sisters struggle to figure out how to end it, and Lula battle with her heart and reality as Maks regains his memory and becomes more and more vicious. These aren’t the average take on zombies, so it was interesting to see the zombies struggle with what they are and eventually embrace it, becoming less like their former selves.

The story itself lost me a little somewhere around the middle, but it picked up soon after. Of course, the middle was when it seemed most apparent that the three sisters would’ve agreed to confess to their parents because it was clearly starting to get out of hand. It just got repetitive and a little petty around the middle, which really took me out of the story until it got back into the swing of things. I did love the variety of new characters that we met, including a friendly vampire who doesn’t take anyone’s crap among other characters and supernatural beings.

I’m looking forward to reading the next book in the series and see what happens as we follow Rose. Hopefully Rose doesn’t make the same accidental mistake as her two sisters did, but we’ll see! Either way, I know we’re in for another great book.