kerchoo 's review for:

The Seventh Veil of Salome by Silvia Moreno-Garcia

3.5

mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: No

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: Complicated

Flaws of characters a main focus: No

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the book has an excellent concept but is ultimately underwhelming in execution. i knew that, because the setting was 1950s hollywood, race would be an important aspect of the story (especially given that silvia moreno-garcia tends to add elements of racial discourse to her novels). however, it felt at times like someone was beating a dead horse. not to say that the racism was annoying or unnecessary to the story that was being told, it just felt somewhat overused and like a bit of a crutch to make the audience sympathize/empathize with vera a bit more. (would like to note that this is coming from a person of color as well)
i found myself getting really invested in vera or salome's perspective and then the next chapter would switch time periods and it completely killed my momentum. i am someone who generally doesn't do well with narratives that cut back and forth between perspectives that are a large stretch of time apart, but i do understand and appreciate the function of it in this book. but towards the end i found it made the story too predictable and i wasn't able to care because i knew how everything would play out, given that these two women's stories were playing out somewhat parallel to one another.

tl;dr: interesting story that i really wanted to like more, but just found myself feeling apathetic by the end