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3.8 AVERAGE
3.8 AVERAGE
Silvia Moreno-Garcia is on a roll! I read her novel Gods of jade & Shadow last year and loved it now in 2020 she gives us two more novel Mexican Gothic out in June & Untamed Shore, out now. To avoid any spoilers, I’m going to keep this simple.
Moreno-Garcia's is a talented storyteller, this suspenseful, noir mystery had up way pass my bedtime. I must say, don’t let Viridiana “naivety” fool you, there is more to her than you know. There are some trigger warnings you should be aware of here: some unwanted sexual activity and domestic violence.
I thought this was a worthy read, can’t wait for Moreno-Garcia's next novel. Thanks to Polis Books/Agora books for this gifted DARC via NetGally, in exchange for an honest review.
Moreno-Garcia's is a talented storyteller, this suspenseful, noir mystery had up way pass my bedtime. I must say, don’t let Viridiana “naivety” fool you, there is more to her than you know. There are some trigger warnings you should be aware of here: some unwanted sexual activity and domestic violence.
I thought this was a worthy read, can’t wait for Moreno-Garcia's next novel. Thanks to Polis Books/Agora books for this gifted DARC via NetGally, in exchange for an honest review.
This book is a slow burn: the plot moving like a trickle of sweat down your back and ending incandescently as when you pull your hand away from shielding your eyes to pick a spot on the sun washed horizon to go to. Highly recommended.
A spectacularly mean little thriller that would make Jim Thompson proud. Filled with amoral characters, double-crosses, schemes, and limitless greed, this Mexico-set noir once again proves Silvia Moreno-Garcia to be one of the best authors out there, genre or otherwise.
03-02: 3.5 stars?? That last 10/20% was.... WOW.
** I received an ARC of this book via Netgalley.
This book was… A Perfect Execution of exactly what it promised and it blew my mind. Completely.
Let me explain.
I’ve recently learned that my definition of noir and other people’s definition go far and wide, apparently. Especially with US based readers? So just to make it clear where I am coming from: To me, Hardboiled Dick Novels and Roman Noir are not the same thing for me. And Noir is not a thriller, not a detective novel at all, and it is not about finding the killer and eliminating or arresting them by the end of the book. So if you are expecting this from Untamed Shore? You might want to reconsider if this is the right book for you.
I found it to be a *perfect* noir, and it did exactly what noir stories do imo. Because noir does not focus on the whodunnit, not really. It’s not about right and wrong and choosing between the two, but more about how many gray areas there are, all in various shades and how life and power and the world corrupt us, especially once something really bad happens and puts us in impossible situations. If I had to sum it up right I’d probably say noir are crime novels with no heroes, no justice, no clear moral path and no happy end. Not in the classic way people think of when they hear the words “crime novel”.
Silvia Moreno-Garcia did a fantastic job of capturing that essence and turned it into an incredible novel that I couldn’t put down. We follow Viridiana, an outsider in her small Mexican town in 1979, who doesn’t want to marry the man the town thinks she should marry, doesn’t focus in the things people think she should be focusing on and doesn’t behave the way everyone wants her to behave. When three American tourists come into town she gets hired as their secretary - kind of - but quickly falls off the deep end with them and the excitement and escape from her real life they seem to offer.
It was amazing to me to watch Viridiana go from the kind of pure and morally “good” girl trying to find her footing to the woman she is in the end. And right from the start you know things will go sideways, nothing is really how it seems and you also know that no matter who is going to die and who is going to kill, there will be no clear division into “bad guy” and “good guy”. And when it happens you know who did it, you just *know*, but the real suspense builds up all around the question how everyone will deal with the death of this tourist, with uncovering or covering up the murder that happened in their midst, and how far every single character is willing to go to get the result they want.
This novel sucked me in deep, it kept me constantly suspended between the disgust you feel when you watch a character absolutely violates your moral code, and empathy for the characters and their situations because deep down I can’t for sure say what I would have done. And rooting for everything being “okay” again, even though you know things were not okay at all before and this murder is just bringing to light how corrupted and distorted morality, society and life has always been, even when you refused to see it or call it that.
I loved this journey. I loved the way in which Moreno-Garcia approached and dissected the layers of deception, secrecy and moral grayness surrounding the crime, the town, and the main characters. It was gritty and thrilling and awful all at the same time, in the most perfect and intriguing way.
I definitely recommend this book if you are a fan of the genre, of this kind of story telling and of truly morally gray characters.
CW: murder, domestic abuse, coercion and sexual abuse on page, alcohol abuse, police corruption, psychological manipulation and gaslighting, misogyny
This book was… A Perfect Execution of exactly what it promised and it blew my mind. Completely.
Let me explain.
I’ve recently learned that my definition of noir and other people’s definition go far and wide, apparently. Especially with US based readers? So just to make it clear where I am coming from: To me, Hardboiled Dick Novels and Roman Noir are not the same thing for me. And Noir is not a thriller, not a detective novel at all, and it is not about finding the killer and eliminating or arresting them by the end of the book. So if you are expecting this from Untamed Shore? You might want to reconsider if this is the right book for you.
I found it to be a *perfect* noir, and it did exactly what noir stories do imo. Because noir does not focus on the whodunnit, not really. It’s not about right and wrong and choosing between the two, but more about how many gray areas there are, all in various shades and how life and power and the world corrupt us, especially once something really bad happens and puts us in impossible situations. If I had to sum it up right I’d probably say noir are crime novels with no heroes, no justice, no clear moral path and no happy end. Not in the classic way people think of when they hear the words “crime novel”.
Silvia Moreno-Garcia did a fantastic job of capturing that essence and turned it into an incredible novel that I couldn’t put down. We follow Viridiana, an outsider in her small Mexican town in 1979, who doesn’t want to marry the man the town thinks she should marry, doesn’t focus in the things people think she should be focusing on and doesn’t behave the way everyone wants her to behave. When three American tourists come into town she gets hired as their secretary - kind of - but quickly falls off the deep end with them and the excitement and escape from her real life they seem to offer.
It was amazing to me to watch Viridiana go from the kind of pure and morally “good” girl trying to find her footing to the woman she is in the end. And right from the start you know things will go sideways, nothing is really how it seems and you also know that no matter who is going to die and who is going to kill, there will be no clear division into “bad guy” and “good guy”. And when it happens you know who did it, you just *know*, but the real suspense builds up all around the question how everyone will deal with the death of this tourist, with uncovering or covering up the murder that happened in their midst, and how far every single character is willing to go to get the result they want.
This novel sucked me in deep, it kept me constantly suspended between the disgust you feel when you watch a character absolutely violates your moral code, and empathy for the characters and their situations because deep down I can’t for sure say what I would have done. And rooting for everything being “okay” again, even though you know things were not okay at all before and this murder is just bringing to light how corrupted and distorted morality, society and life has always been, even when you refused to see it or call it that.
I loved this journey. I loved the way in which Moreno-Garcia approached and dissected the layers of deception, secrecy and moral grayness surrounding the crime, the town, and the main characters. It was gritty and thrilling and awful all at the same time, in the most perfect and intriguing way.
I definitely recommend this book if you are a fan of the genre, of this kind of story telling and of truly morally gray characters.
CW: murder, domestic abuse, coercion and sexual abuse on page, alcohol abuse, police corruption, psychological manipulation and gaslighting, misogyny
4.25
Full review: https://readingwithrendz.wordpress.com/2020/02/10/untamed-shore-review-in-which-i-read-my-first-thriller-and-realize-i-might-be-more-blood-thirsty-than-i-initially-thought/
___
The Likes:
SMG has a way of just totally sucking you into a book. I’ve never set foot in 1970s Baja California and yet I felt like I was intimately involved with the town of Desengaño. The words wrap around you until you feel like you’re standing on the beach and looking at the display of shark corpses. You feel it, you smell it, you can hear every sound. And, yeah, you’ve never even been in a setting like that before, but the writing makes it a whole experience for you anyways.
The writing is gorgeous and stellar, but I’ll be honest, what got me reeled in were the characters!
Viridiana, my girl. She was un-apologetically herself all the time. (Although she has her moments of self-doubt, but don’t we all) She was walking paradox. Practical, straightforward and yet dreamy. She fully understood her confinement in her small town, and the limits placed on her because of her gender, religion and economic status, but that didn’t stop her from dreaming. From imagining herself as a movie star, albeit a hopelessly romantic one. She had a love for languages which hello, hi, same. I really enjoyed reading about her journey and the shit she put herself through and had to get out of. I loved that she was not perfectly capable and when she messes up she has to get her hands dirty to fix it up. And let me tell you she messes up. A lot. But she wants what we all want, a life worth having lived. Where she can reach for the stars like anyone else. And she lies, cheats and maybe does more to get that.
The Americans….HMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM. The mother fucking Americans. (I am talking specifically about the book’s Americans, not you my dear American readers). Viridiana gets caught up in their web and it takes a lot of work to get out of it. If I’m being honest Gregory was a little beeyatch and Daisy was The Bitch of the Group, so I really hated them, but was also fascinated by them. Viridiana and I were both really in the same boat here, except I was better at calling their bullshit.
The twistiness!!!! You know at one point I thought I had it in the bag. Like I knew exactly what was gonna happen and then I got slapped and realized I needed to humble myself. Suffice to say, the twists were really good. There was a lot of suspense to be had and the book keeps you on the edge of your seat constantly. It’s that kind of tense reading where you’re yelling at the characters to do one thing and they do the opposite which only makes you more stressed but also more intrigued! There were a lot less sharks than I initially anticipated (but they are mentioned a lot), but the Americans and ~others~ do have a certain vicious sharkness to them. I’ll be honest though the beginning sets up a lot of groundwork so it takes a bit to get to that first moment of shit-hitting-the-fan. But it sure does and my girl gets her hands dirty!!
Now, it turns out that I am willing to go way farther than Viridiana is to get out of a mess and she goes pretty far. I had to take a minute to question my moral values and reflect on my blood thirst. Viridiana had the decency to feel some remorse where as I was like yasssssssss I like this blood we are spilling and lies we are telling. So yeah.
Full review: https://readingwithrendz.wordpress.com/2020/02/10/untamed-shore-review-in-which-i-read-my-first-thriller-and-realize-i-might-be-more-blood-thirsty-than-i-initially-thought/
___
The Likes:
SMG has a way of just totally sucking you into a book. I’ve never set foot in 1970s Baja California and yet I felt like I was intimately involved with the town of Desengaño. The words wrap around you until you feel like you’re standing on the beach and looking at the display of shark corpses. You feel it, you smell it, you can hear every sound. And, yeah, you’ve never even been in a setting like that before, but the writing makes it a whole experience for you anyways.
The writing is gorgeous and stellar, but I’ll be honest, what got me reeled in were the characters!
Viridiana, my girl. She was un-apologetically herself all the time. (Although she has her moments of self-doubt, but don’t we all) She was walking paradox. Practical, straightforward and yet dreamy. She fully understood her confinement in her small town, and the limits placed on her because of her gender, religion and economic status, but that didn’t stop her from dreaming. From imagining herself as a movie star, albeit a hopelessly romantic one. She had a love for languages which hello, hi, same. I really enjoyed reading about her journey and the shit she put herself through and had to get out of. I loved that she was not perfectly capable and when she messes up she has to get her hands dirty to fix it up. And let me tell you she messes up. A lot. But she wants what we all want, a life worth having lived. Where she can reach for the stars like anyone else. And she lies, cheats and maybe does more to get that.
The Americans….HMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM. The mother fucking Americans. (I am talking specifically about the book’s Americans, not you my dear American readers). Viridiana gets caught up in their web and it takes a lot of work to get out of it. If I’m being honest Gregory was a little beeyatch and Daisy was The Bitch of the Group, so I really hated them, but was also fascinated by them. Viridiana and I were both really in the same boat here, except I was better at calling their bullshit.
The twistiness!!!! You know at one point I thought I had it in the bag. Like I knew exactly what was gonna happen and then I got slapped and realized I needed to humble myself. Suffice to say, the twists were really good. There was a lot of suspense to be had and the book keeps you on the edge of your seat constantly. It’s that kind of tense reading where you’re yelling at the characters to do one thing and they do the opposite which only makes you more stressed but also more intrigued! There were a lot less sharks than I initially anticipated (but they are mentioned a lot), but the Americans and ~others~ do have a certain vicious sharkness to them. I’ll be honest though the beginning sets up a lot of groundwork so it takes a bit to get to that first moment of shit-hitting-the-fan. But it sure does and my girl gets her hands dirty!!
Now, it turns out that I am willing to go way farther than Viridiana is to get out of a mess and she goes pretty far. I had to take a minute to question my moral values and reflect on my blood thirst. Viridiana had the decency to feel some remorse where as I was like yasssssssss I like this blood we are spilling and lies we are telling. So yeah.
challenging
dark
mysterious
tense
fast-paced
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Full disclosure: I received an ARC of this book from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for my honest review.
Viridiana finds the small fishing village in Baja California in which she lives to be stifling, especially when her mother and her loutish ex-boyfriend’s mother are campaigning for her to marry the boy and help run her would-be mother-in-law’s store. Viridiana dreams of college in Mexico City and following in her deadbeat dreamer dad’s footsteps to become a translator. When a wealthy old man entertaining ideas of writing a novel arrives in town with his glamorous wife and brother-in-law, he offers Viridiana an opportunity too good for her to pass up: a summer living as his translator and personal assistant in the fancy home he has rented, for which she would be paid extremely well for sporadic work taking notes and typing whenever he felt like working on the book. Of course, she quickly discovers that this is a family of secrets and complicated relationships, and she must tread carefully in her dealings with them.
Viridiana starts out naive, slowly learning over the course of the novel how others are manipulating her. She is used to being the smartest person in the room and understands the small town politics and corruption that she has grown up with, but begins the novel dazzled by her employers’ glamorous lifestyle and charm. When one of them dies, she begins to unravel the truth about them and must use her wits to save herself from incrimination in their schemes.
I enjoyed the slow burn and introspective protagonist, which offered excellent character development and suspense at how Viridiana would try to navigate and survive the drama unfolding around her. This is Moreno-Garcia’s first book outside the SFF genre, and she has pulled it off well. If you like noir-style suspense, I highly recommend this novel.
Viridiana finds the small fishing village in Baja California in which she lives to be stifling, especially when her mother and her loutish ex-boyfriend’s mother are campaigning for her to marry the boy and help run her would-be mother-in-law’s store. Viridiana dreams of college in Mexico City and following in her deadbeat dreamer dad’s footsteps to become a translator. When a wealthy old man entertaining ideas of writing a novel arrives in town with his glamorous wife and brother-in-law, he offers Viridiana an opportunity too good for her to pass up: a summer living as his translator and personal assistant in the fancy home he has rented, for which she would be paid extremely well for sporadic work taking notes and typing whenever he felt like working on the book. Of course, she quickly discovers that this is a family of secrets and complicated relationships, and she must tread carefully in her dealings with them.
Viridiana starts out naive, slowly learning over the course of the novel how others are manipulating her. She is used to being the smartest person in the room and understands the small town politics and corruption that she has grown up with, but begins the novel dazzled by her employers’ glamorous lifestyle and charm. When one of them dies, she begins to unravel the truth about them and must use her wits to save herself from incrimination in their schemes.
I enjoyed the slow burn and introspective protagonist, which offered excellent character development and suspense at how Viridiana would try to navigate and survive the drama unfolding around her. This is Moreno-Garcia’s first book outside the SFF genre, and she has pulled it off well. If you like noir-style suspense, I highly recommend this novel.
" I don't believe in ghosts either. But sometimes they're here anyway."
medium-paced
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes