HAPPY BOOK BIRTHDAY TO MEXICAN GOTHIC BY SILVIA MORENO-GARCIA!
I cannot tell you all how excited I am that today has finally arrived! I have been waiting for this book since it was announced and have since then fed on whatever news I could get about it! From the announcement to the cover reveal (my cover tweet is still my fave tweet!!!) to the book club kit and finally the music that went along with it!
Silvia Moreno-Garcia made a whole playlist for the book and as I was listening to it, I just had to pick my favourite song to honour this release on Tune & Title Tuesday!!
Tune:Wicked Game – Ursine Vulpine ft. Annaca
I was listening to the playlist while writing up an assignment and this song made me do a full stop! First came in the haunting piano and I was like ~woah hold on there, this is definitely a song I would be into~ and it turns out I was very much right! I don’t know how much it has to do with the book…but dang I’m intrigued. It could be a Catalina song or a Noemí song, but either way I’m into it! Even though I haven’t read it, I can definitely get the vibe that this Gothic novel is giving off!
Obviously I haven’t read the book yet, but I am very very very VERY much looking forward to it! I have seen a couple of reviews from people that have loved it and have been totally creeped out by it and I can’t help but be excited. I’m not a big horror reader, but I’ll be whatever kind of reader when it comes to Silvia Moreno-Garcia, so let’s do this! The song repeatedly states over and over that “I don’t want to fall in love” but HEY I’m very much looking to fall in love with this book!
If you’re on Instagram, follow me @readingwithrendz because I’m spending the whole week posting about Silvia Moreno-Garcia’s amazing work!!!
Let me know what you think! Have you gotten your copy of Mexican Gothic yet? What horror novels do you love? Do you listen to book playlists?
*Link to the master list of how you can help Black Lives Matter movements across the globe*
Unfortunately, I waited too long to review this from the time I read it. So be prepared for a really vague review of the things I remember. Or at least try to remember.
It’s always super sucky when you have hopes for a book and it falls flat. I was really looking forward to this book because it is Latinx fantasy and we all know how much I am for thisssssss!!! Alas, things don’t always go the way we hope.
Diamond City by Francesca Flores
via Goodreads
Pub Date: Jan 28th, 2020
Publisher: Wednesday Books Goodreads
Good things don’t happen to girls who come from nothing…unless they risk everything.
Fierce and ambitious, Aina Solís as sharp as her blade and as mysterious as the blood magic she protects. After the murder of her parents, Aina takes a job as an assassin to survive and finds a new family in those like her: the unwanted and forgotten.
Her boss is brutal and cold, with a questionable sense of morality, but he provides a place for people with nowhere else to go. And makes sure they stay there.
DIAMOND CITY: built by magic, ruled by tyrants, and in desperate need of saving. It is a world full of dark forces and hidden agendas, old rivalries and lethal new enemies.
To claim a future for herself in a world that doesn’t want her to survive, Aina will have to win a game of murder and conspiracy—and risk losing everything.
Full of action, romance and dark magic, book one of Francesca Flores’ breathtaking fantasy duology will leave readers eager for more!
*Thank you to Raincoast Books for the ARC*
It was all Meh and less than Meh
Aina was…girl. She was trying to be this I don’t give a shit about you or your mom kind of girl, but she kind of does. And yet she just rubbed me the wrong way several times. And I mean I was kind of lost with her most of the time. I found nothing profound about her, if you get what I mean. She had a really interesting past and I would have loved to get a little more into it, but it was always a surface level kind of feel with her.
Teo, he was worth it. I mean, his purpose? Being a good friend. And he did his job.
Riyu. Hehhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. Honestly boring af. He had the personality of a wet towel that could maneuver a gun.
The other girl, I don’t even remember her name, that’s how not important she was.
BUT HOLY the amount of preachy, inspirational dialogues was too much for me. I like a few inspirational moments in my book, but there was this one chapter where everyone was going around saying something profound and revolutionary….I couldn’t take it. I mean…it just felt so shoved down my throat and I hate the expression, but that chapter didn’t contribute anything at all.
Also the chapters. Oh dear. They were so chopped up and chunky. And I don’t mean that they were long. It’s that some were so short that the next chapter would just be the continuation of the same scene. There wasn’t even that much a cliffhanger between them. They just ended and began again on a new page. Stylistically, it bothered, but maybe they changed it in the finished version.
The world was interesting. It was—I believe—a country that had a mix of different nationalities. There was an industrial boom, one that came at the cost of the religious freedom and ended up in religious persecution. I was really interested in that conversation, but again the book only ever really touched the surface of the problems and they were big problems. There was also gangs, which…is it bad that I like gravitate towards gang-ish books? (since I am Latina and hello stereotype much) And yet I can’t help but like the cutthroat workings of a gang. Especially ones that are less found-family and more I-would-kill-you-given-the-chance. I don’t know why, it just fascinates me and we all know I could never make it a group like that. The politics were pretty straightforward so I didn’t have too much of a hard time following that. The giant spiders….I just…Why? WHAT WAS THE REASON? Literally, she just shoved in these (nasty) creatures and I felt like it did not match the world at all. Like I get it spiders can be big, but this addition felt almost too cheesy futuristic movie to me.
The diamond magic. Well. From what I remember we didn’t get much diamond magic. I could be wrong. I know there are some pretty big moments that feature them and I really liked how they work, but I felt like they were still just glanced at this book. Everything is just a skim of the surface with this book. I felt like it never got bone deep.
You wanna know what I did like? The twisted relationship Aina had with her boss! Was it love? Lust? Hate? Fear? Admiration, as she so often claims? I really liked that she almost “addicted” to him in the sense that she knew he was no good for her and yet couldn’t help going back for more. And let me tell you her boss is like Kaz Brekker but like not even remotely redeemable. This was the highlight of the book and the one thing I felt that we got into!
Overall, the book was not it for me. I felt like it was lacking a lot of substance and the characters were not memorable for me. It sucks because I know I wanted to love this so badly, but I struggled with this.
Rating:2 / 5
Recommend?: I will always recommend Latinx reads, just be aware I didn’t love this.
Let me know what you think! Have you read this? What did you think? How do you deal with disappointing reads? What assassin books do you like?
Reading with Rendz 