Labyrinth Lost by Zoraida Cordova

All her life, Alex has wanted to live a normal life as any other normal teenage girl would. However, she struggles to find any normalcy having been born and raised in a family of brujas and brujos. Her older sister Lula, younger sister Rose, and her mother eagerly await the day for Alex’s bruja powers to awaken so she may finally have her Deathday. After an uncontrolled mishap at school, Alex dreadfully watches her family scramble to prepare for her Deathday. Deathday is when a young bruja or brujo channel the power of their family, alive and dead, and officially accept the powers gifted to them by the Gods. However, Alex doesn’t want to accept them. Her magic is stronger than most, and it terrifies her. She wants nothing more than to be a normal girl. On the night of her Deathday, after her canto goes horribly wrong and sends her family to another dimension, Alex must accept her fate and rely on her powers to keep herself alive and bring her family back home safely. But dark forces roam dominantly in this strange land and hungrily dries the land of the life that once flourished. With the aid of Nova, a mysterious and entrancing brujo her same age, Alex desperately travels through the depressed land to rescue her family from her terrible mistake.

Young adults would be able to relate to Alex and her struggle to shape her own life when her family seems to have decided her fate for her. Despite her magical lifestyle, Alex, like normal teenagers, struggle with self-identity, sexuality and discovering the person they want to be going into adulthood. She fears the future, but channels her love for her family to gather a brave will to dive into the unknown and learn from her mistakes. I would recommend Labyrinth Lost to pre-teens as it is easy for them to relate and enjoy the context level of the book.

Pros: solid storyline, easily enjoyable, good twists in the plot, intriguing references to Latin American culture
Cons: None

Video Book Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4saElwTvX28

Interesting note by the author about her experience with YAL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I9i7PDgiITQ