Goddess of Grass by Ed MorawskiMy rating: 2 of 5 stars
Unfortunately, this book is described as a historical novel when, for me, it did not come across as a novel at all, and of any genre. The narrative reads mainly as a factual book with plenty of descriptions informing the reader of many fascinating facts about Cortes and the conquering of the Aztecs, but not in the context of a story with characters that exchange conversations, which pull the plot along in an engaging and intriguing fashion. There are admittedly a few pieces of imagined dialogue but in between them the large amount of information is presented like a list of facts and figures, such as may be found in a more academic history book. While there are occasional descriptions of the characters, like Cortes, Montezuma and Malinalli, the Goddess of Grass, I found they were not written in the context of a fascinating tale of adventure, plot and betrayal as I had expected to find. As I have said previously, it was too cold and dryly academic, and constantly felt theoretical.
After the final chapter of the ‘story’ a lot of time was spent on explanations of the origins of the Goddess’s name, and more detail about the Aztecs, together with a time line; all illustrating, even further, just how much the author may have spent on research. But whether it was necessary to include as much information within the body of the ‘novel’ was questionable.
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