Aurora returns to Mexico City in Rooted, by Leopoldo Goût, to help a team of archaeologists and curators repatriate artifacts that were taken centuries ago by Europeans. It’s noble work, much better than the stuff she did when she was a corporate lawyer. Unfortunately, returning to Mexico City means revisiting family secrets so awful that Aurora has had night terrors. A gruesome relic of the Aztec deity Xipe Totec is the last thing Aurora needs.
Rooted begins with a prologue that shows just how dangerous Xipe Totec is. This statue shows up shortly after Aurora sets up shop at the anthropological museum that will display the repatriated artifacts, though it has been sealed into a casket of iron and what I’m pretty sure is lead. Aurora’s friend, Ociel, tells her that he’s never seen anything like it on any of his digs–though he admits later that he’s not surprised to find human remains inside of the statue of Xipe Totec.
Much of Rooted focuses on Aurora and her loosening grasp on the everyday world, rather than on Aztec religion and culture, however. (I learned more about Xipe Totex from the Wikipedia article than from this novel.) Flashbacks in the form of terrifying dreams reveal that Aurora’s mother and grandmother are keeping secrets from her. A few of these dreams lead Aurora to ask her mother if they’re actually memories (much to her mother’s horror), even though very strange and very improbably things happen in those dreams.
Though we experience those dreams along with Aurora, I never got so much as a goosebump from this novel. I was expecting a lot more from Rooted than I got. Perhaps I didn’t get the creeps because we’re told Aurora is frightened more than we’re shown it. Perhaps its because the scary stuff never goes beyond a few deaths and and some body horror. Perhaps its because I know the Aztec pantheon holds a lot more potential for terror. Perhaps its because everything culminates in a too-fast family reconciliation than a big showdown. Whatever it was, this book was a fizzle for me.
I received a free copy of this book from the publisher via NetGalley, for review consideration.