Reviews with content warning for Death - Silver Nitrate

Reviews tagging 'Death'

Silver Nitrate by Silvia Moreno-Garcia

59 reviews

javafenn's review against another edition

adventurous dark funny hopeful mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

I would actually give this book a 3.5 but rated it a 4 here because the 3.5 is my fault. I ad a lot of health issues this past year that caused me to take a very long time to read this. That said, I really enjoyed this book! I loved the magic and horror of it all. The description of Tristán’s dead girlfriend in his apartment was terrifying! The occultism and Ewer’s obsession with pure lineage was believable too! It felt like Moreno-Garcia did a lot of research for it. I also absolutely loved how the book ended! Momo was fighting the ghost of Ewer’s the whole book but it really felt like that ghost was herself. She was fighting what she thought was the worst of herself. Very relatable!

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paloverdepages's review against another edition

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adventurous dark mysterious medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.0

I instantly have a soft spot for this book. The author has definitely found her audience with me; I love film history and magic, and I'm not familiar with the movie making scene of 1993 Mexico or the details of the Nazi's esoteric practices. There's lots of jargon, but not knowing it all doesn't interrupt the reading experience at all. It does start a bit slow, but once it gets going it doesn't let up. It really kept me guessing the whole way through and I was happy to be along for the ride. However, there's already so much going on in this book that we really didn't need the romance. It felt disappointing and forced.

I can suspend my disbelief at them running into and befriending their favorite forgotten director, but I did have a bit of an issue with

how much information he explicitly laid out for them (for the reader's benefit?).

My editor brain kicked on for some word choices and minor plot things. The intersection of Mexican film history and Nazi occultism and conspiracies is a pretty niche topic, but I think that some of the

pages upon pages of them meeting are too heavy on Urueta talking about this stuff. And some of the dialogue between the three of them seems a bit too explanatory (again, for the reader's benefit?)

. I did like the smaller scenes

of Montserrat researching

that broke up these instances.

Another thing that bothered me was how many times it was mentioned that Montserrat was wearing graphic t-shirt with a different movie poster on it? And more importantly, how some storylines seemed to be dropped or forgotten about. I don't think

the plot with Montserrat's sister having cancer was woven in as well as it could have been, or any information about her mother

, and I was super intrigued by Tristán's past and I wish we got a little bit more of that. It took a while to reveal anything substantial about him, and I wanted to hear more about

maybe his upbringing in a Lebanese family in Mexico, or his bisexuality in the film scene of the 90s (and Montserrat is bi too! Cool how normal it's treated, but I want DETAILS!)

. His character has depth that's only pointed at. It might be asking for too much given the type of story this is, but I wanted more from the character's backstories.

I also wanted a bit more from the setting. I LOVED the mentions of how the scene was becoming more Americanized, and I would have been interested to hear more about that through maybe some interactions that Montserrat or Tristán had with other people.

The overall plot is good, it just doesn't quite come together thematically. It touches on lots of interesting aspects without exploring any of them to their full potential. I think maybe this book needed another good once-over, but I've definitely enjoyed it to want to look into the rest of the author's work and maybe do some research of my own on what inspired her.

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hauntedantiqueshop's review against another edition

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dark mysterious medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.0

This book was a love letter to all the weird, slightly off putting girls who grew up loving witches and occultism and had a vast knowledge of obscure movies. Sooo basically me 😋

I would have probably rated it higher had there been no romance aspect but that’s just me.

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