Bookshot #187: You Dreamed of Empires

Man, I don't know what to think about this book. I want to grade on ever-so-slight of a curve because it was translated from Spanish, but I'm just not that convinced that it would lose that much in translation. We're not talking about ancient Greek or Latin here. It's Spanish. But this book appeared on more than a few 'Best of 2024' lists and for the life of me, I can't understand why. I'm not opposed to messing around with structure or getting a little weird (see: Martyr! by Kaveh Akbar) but this book was really fucking frustrating to read and there was little to no payoff for the reader who managed to slog through all that frustration. We opened in Tenochtitlan, the island capital of the Aztec Empire in 1519. Conquistador Hernan Cortes and his soldiers have arrived in the city, lured on from the coasts by the promise of unimaginable wealth and power ahead of them. They badly bungle the entrance (Cortes goes to hug Emperor Moctezuma and is nearly kille...