Scan barcode
rhi_'s review against another edition
adventurous
dark
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Racism, Sexism, Misogyny, Classism, Violence, Torture, Homophobia, and Hate crime
Moderate: Drug use, Lesbophobia, Racial slurs, Police brutality, Blood, Injury/Injury detail, Antisemitism, and Alcohol
abominablesnowaro's review against another edition
adventurous
emotional
hopeful
inspiring
reflective
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
5.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Violence, Homophobia, Classism, Gun violence, Infidelity, Misogyny, Police brutality, Racism, Sexual harassment, Sexism, Alcohol, Blood, Bullying, Hate crime, Lesbophobia, Religious bigotry, Antisemitism, Stalking, Physical abuse, Racial slurs, and Sexual violence
Moderate: Domestic abuse, Kidnapping, Miscarriage, Fire/Fire injury, Emotional abuse, Murder, Rape, Sexual assault, Outing, and Torture
madamenovelist's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
funny
sad
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Ableism, Classism, Cursing, Death, Police brutality, Murder, Medical trauma, Homophobia, Hate crime, Gun violence, Gore, Grief, Alcohol, Alcoholism, Antisemitism, Blood, Body horror, Violence, Torture, Stalking, Physical abuse, Misogyny, Miscarriage, Domestic abuse, Xenophobia, Toxic relationship, Sexual harassment, Sexism, Religious bigotry, Racism, Lesbophobia, Kidnapping, and Injury/Injury detail
jessicaludden's review
emotional
funny
hopeful
tense
medium-paced
4.0
“Not just my love for Javier, but my love for who I’m supposed to be. Who I am—a bindle punk bruja whose courage never dies.”
Thank you Harper Voyager for an ARC of this book! Bindle Punk Bruja is set in 1920s Kansas City and follows Luna, a half Mexican woman who is a witch and goes by the alias Rose due to the fact that she is white passing. As she discovers new things about her powers, she works to get out from under the control of dangerous mobsters and own her own club in Missouri’s underworld of bootlegging.
I really enjoyed this! It took me a bit to get into it and sometimes the magic or setting could be a bit confusing, but once I hit a certain point in the book I couldn’t put it down. The stakes were always so high and the tension was there. There was always some kind of enemy coming to take Rose down, to the point where it was almost too much at the end. But I loved how the author included commentary on race and sexuality and gender. I loved how the main character was a strong woman who knew what she wanted and got it, but also had a lot to learn about who she was and what it meant to love others. What I loved most about this book was the relationships. I loved Rose’s bond with her brother and how important family is for her. I loved her relationship with Heck and how they cared for each other. I loved the romance between Rose and Gio. The tension was done really well and the the feeling of wanting to but not being able to was depicted well. Overall, I enjoyed this a lot and I loved the characters. I love that Rose was able to expand her family even more.
Thank you Harper Voyager for an ARC of this book! Bindle Punk Bruja is set in 1920s Kansas City and follows Luna, a half Mexican woman who is a witch and goes by the alias Rose due to the fact that she is white passing. As she discovers new things about her powers, she works to get out from under the control of dangerous mobsters and own her own club in Missouri’s underworld of bootlegging.
I really enjoyed this! It took me a bit to get into it and sometimes the magic or setting could be a bit confusing, but once I hit a certain point in the book I couldn’t put it down. The stakes were always so high and the tension was there. There was always some kind of enemy coming to take Rose down, to the point where it was almost too much at the end. But I loved how the author included commentary on race and sexuality and gender. I loved how the main character was a strong woman who knew what she wanted and got it, but also had a lot to learn about who she was and what it meant to love others. What I loved most about this book was the relationships. I loved Rose’s bond with her brother and how important family is for her. I loved her relationship with Heck and how they cared for each other. I loved the romance between Rose and Gio. The tension was done really well and the the feeling of wanting to but not being able to was depicted well. Overall, I enjoyed this a lot and I loved the characters. I love that Rose was able to expand her family even more.
Content Warnings
Minor: Antisemitism, Blood, Sexual harassment, Rape, Sexism, Sexual assault, Domestic abuse, Fire/Fire injury, Hate crime, Homophobia, Lesbophobia, Miscarriage, Misogyny, Murder, Alcohol, Cursing, Kidnapping, Outing, Police brutality, Physical abuse, Racial slurs, Racism, Religious bigotry, and Sexual content
ilana_banana's review
adventurous
slow-paced
2.5
thanks to netgalley and Harper Voyager for the e-arc
This review might contain spoilers
2.5*
TW: homophobia, racism, xenophobia, sexual harassment, sexism, police brutality, religious bigotry.
i did not have fun reading this💀.
I'll start with the positive things I have to say about it. I am also Mexican, so I appreciated being able to see Rose/Luna and her family, although I would have liked to see a little more of their dynamic. The prose is great and really atmospheric.
This book is about racism and sexism and how this has affected the main character and those around her while trying to make a living and be successful. Its a story that follows minorities and identities in a difficult time period and difficult circumstances. The magic is interesting and complex, so that was fine too.
Now, my main problem with this book was the characters. I'm sorry, but I didn't love the main character. I like what she represents and the general idea of her, but as a character I just don't. I'm not going to deny that she's a strong and powerful character, but I still feel pretty indifferent about her otherwise,She barely does anything, all the problems and conflicts are conveniently solved by other people, which later creates another conflict and then again is solved by someone else and it's just a vicious circle that gets boring after a few times, it's incredibly convenient for the plot. and except for a few occasions this is a recurring theme. It's a 400 page book and in my opinion we barely get to know the characters, there's not enough backstory to care about them. The relationships that are formed are incredibly rushed and happen in a short amount of time, these relationships expand and grow throughout the book, but the beginning felt really rushed.
There are a lot of colloquialisms from the 1920s and the way the dialogues are written makes it sometimes difficult to read if you don't already know them.
I didn't want to spend a lot of time talking about this because I don't think that's the main focus of the book, as it's mostly about marginalized communities like Latinx and Black, but this also includes the LGBTQ+ community and it’s important for me to talk about it. There are some queer characters that are really important to the story, I'm going to talk about one in particular right now. I'm not going to say his name because that’s a spoiler, although it's pretty clear from the start. He was just the stereotypical gay best friend for most of this book, we don't get much context or history about his character and that makes it seem like he's just there for the main character's sake. There is a scene near the end of the book where he has some interaction with Rose (trying to be vague here) but I can't tell you how humiliating and awful reading this was for me, it didn't need to be included. After this situation happens, it is immediately forgiven and forgotten within the next chapter, I didn't like the way the main character responded to what happened. We know the historical context of being an LGBTQ+ person and the nuances and difficulties about it even more so in the 1920s, this character is dealing with internalized homophobia from the very beginning. There are also several instances of making the main character seem superior just by “understanding” these characters, while the queer characters deal with this internalized homophobia and trauma and get no more help than her saying it's okay you’re like this. People usually do this when it does not affect them, showing acceptance is the bare minimum. Again, this is the 1920s so acceptance is already a big thing but if you’re writing progressive and supportive characters I feel like should have been talked about more about this issues and others. Despite the fact that the ending for them is happy as far as it goes, I think that many layers were missing in the exploration not only of these characters, but of the others as well.
As I mentioned, the book's prose is great, although I found the story and character construction to be lacking. It went on forever and there weren't enough good characters to make me want to keep reading.
There’s also a very minor and silly thing that bothered me and that was the fact that the book gives off strong millennial vibes, like the character interactions and stuff. Not really a problem but this is a historical fiction book and it took me out of the story,
Again, maybe not a bad book, it wasn't for me and I didn't really enjoy my time reading it, it was very hard for me to read it because of the negative emotions it caused me.
This review might contain spoilers
2.5*
TW: homophobia, racism, xenophobia, sexual harassment, sexism, police brutality, religious bigotry.
i did not have fun reading this💀.
I'll start with the positive things I have to say about it. I am also Mexican, so I appreciated being able to see Rose/Luna and her family, although I would have liked to see a little more of their dynamic. The prose is great and really atmospheric.
This book is about racism and sexism and how this has affected the main character and those around her while trying to make a living and be successful. Its a story that follows minorities and identities in a difficult time period and difficult circumstances. The magic is interesting and complex, so that was fine too.
Now, my main problem with this book was the characters. I'm sorry, but I didn't love the main character. I like what she represents and the general idea of her, but as a character I just don't. I'm not going to deny that she's a strong and powerful character, but I still feel pretty indifferent about her otherwise,She barely does anything, all the problems and conflicts are conveniently solved by other people, which later creates another conflict and then again is solved by someone else and it's just a vicious circle that gets boring after a few times, it's incredibly convenient for the plot. and except for a few occasions this is a recurring theme. It's a 400 page book and in my opinion we barely get to know the characters, there's not enough backstory to care about them. The relationships that are formed are incredibly rushed and happen in a short amount of time, these relationships expand and grow throughout the book, but the beginning felt really rushed.
There are a lot of colloquialisms from the 1920s and the way the dialogues are written makes it sometimes difficult to read if you don't already know them.
I didn't want to spend a lot of time talking about this because I don't think that's the main focus of the book, as it's mostly about marginalized communities like Latinx and Black, but this also includes the LGBTQ+ community and it’s important for me to talk about it. There are some queer characters that are really important to the story, I'm going to talk about one in particular right now. I'm not going to say his name because that’s a spoiler, although it's pretty clear from the start. He was just the stereotypical gay best friend for most of this book, we don't get much context or history about his character and that makes it seem like he's just there for the main character's sake. There is a scene near the end of the book where he has some interaction with Rose (trying to be vague here) but I can't tell you how humiliating and awful reading this was for me, it didn't need to be included. After this situation happens, it is immediately forgiven and forgotten within the next chapter, I didn't like the way the main character responded to what happened. We know the historical context of being an LGBTQ+ person and the nuances and difficulties about it even more so in the 1920s, this character is dealing with internalized homophobia from the very beginning. There are also several instances of making the main character seem superior just by “understanding” these characters, while the queer characters deal with this internalized homophobia and trauma and get no more help than her saying it's okay you’re like this. People usually do this when it does not affect them, showing acceptance is the bare minimum. Again, this is the 1920s so acceptance is already a big thing but if you’re writing progressive and supportive characters I feel like should have been talked about more about this issues and others. Despite the fact that the ending for them is happy as far as it goes, I think that many layers were missing in the exploration not only of these characters, but of the others as well.
As I mentioned, the book's prose is great, although I found the story and character construction to be lacking. It went on forever and there weren't enough good characters to make me want to keep reading.
There’s also a very minor and silly thing that bothered me and that was the fact that the book gives off strong millennial vibes, like the character interactions and stuff. Not really a problem but this is a historical fiction book and it took me out of the story,
Again, maybe not a bad book, it wasn't for me and I didn't really enjoy my time reading it, it was very hard for me to read it because of the negative emotions it caused me.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Religious bigotry, Xenophobia, Homophobia, Racism, Alcohol, Blood, Gun violence, Racial slurs, Sexism, and Classism
Minor: Police brutality and Fire/Fire injury
More...