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arrrgh_schooling 's review for:
Untamed Shore
by Silvia Moreno-Garcia
Thank you to Netgalley for providing me with a free e-arc.
This is my second Moreno-Garcia novel, and I really enjoyed it. I love that she tries something new with every book she writes. This story is a noir set in 1970s Baja California. We follow our protagonist, Viridiana, who is 18 and feeling stifled by the village that expects her to work in her mother's store, get married, and have children. She longs to escape, and earns money working as a translator and giving tours to rich tourists. When she is offered a job working as an assistant for three tourists - a rich man, his wife, and her brother, it seems like a great gig and a way to escape the drudgery of her life. However, things quickly go off the rails.
This story wasn't a typical thriller, though a lot of those aspects are there. It was a slow burn, taking its time to build up to the plot twists. But once you get there, the pay off is worth it.
This was definitely a very character driven novel. I really liked the character of Viridiana. She seems to be a bit naive at the beginning of the story, losing herself to daydreams of old movies and the fantasy of a life in a big city, away from the village that is trying to tie her down. Over the course of the story, she is pushed into terrible situations and she finds out who she really is and what she is capable of. I really enjoyed seeing her self-discovery. She is also a bit of an unreliable narrator, as we're only getting the story from her perspective and there is a lot happening that she doesn't fully understand. But I found all of the characters to be well-crafted and believable.
The atmosphere was fantastic, and the way she wove the shark hunters/fishers and shark imagery and symbolism into the story was so well done. I really felt like I was there in the thick of it. The ending was very satisfying as well. It left me sitting there, thinking about life, and wondering what choices I might have made in Viridiana's position.
This is my second Moreno-Garcia novel, and I really enjoyed it. I love that she tries something new with every book she writes. This story is a noir set in 1970s Baja California. We follow our protagonist, Viridiana, who is 18 and feeling stifled by the village that expects her to work in her mother's store, get married, and have children. She longs to escape, and earns money working as a translator and giving tours to rich tourists. When she is offered a job working as an assistant for three tourists - a rich man, his wife, and her brother, it seems like a great gig and a way to escape the drudgery of her life. However, things quickly go off the rails.
This story wasn't a typical thriller, though a lot of those aspects are there. It was a slow burn, taking its time to build up to the plot twists. But once you get there, the pay off is worth it.
This was definitely a very character driven novel. I really liked the character of Viridiana. She seems to be a bit naive at the beginning of the story, losing herself to daydreams of old movies and the fantasy of a life in a big city, away from the village that is trying to tie her down. Over the course of the story, she is pushed into terrible situations and she finds out who she really is and what she is capable of. I really enjoyed seeing her self-discovery. She is also a bit of an unreliable narrator, as we're only getting the story from her perspective and there is a lot happening that she doesn't fully understand. But I found all of the characters to be well-crafted and believable.
The atmosphere was fantastic, and the way she wove the shark hunters/fishers and shark imagery and symbolism into the story was so well done. I really felt like I was there in the thick of it. The ending was very satisfying as well. It left me sitting there, thinking about life, and wondering what choices I might have made in Viridiana's position.