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This book started out like a strange mixture of Like Water for Chocolate, Stepsister, and The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. I loved the structure of the book. Life and Death are playing the game Loteria, which is a like a Mexican version of Bingo. Every certain number of years, they choose a child and play for their soul - each card determines a twist in Clara's life. The beginning of the book started off great, but it soon veered less into magical realism and more into straight up fantasy quest. That is where the book lost me. I wanted more about Clara's family restaurant, the gifted abilities of her cousins, and to see how the Loteria cards would come into play. I didn't love chasing her cousin Estaban into a mythical kingdom and I didn't care for the ending.