stormlightreader's reviews
803 reviews

The Mexican Mafia by Tony Rafael

A very detailed analysis of the Mexican Mafia, a powerful Los Angeles gang, powerful both in and out of the prison system. 

Rafael's book is comprehensive but felt a little repetitive. The focus of the book is on a handful of crimes and court cases, with perhaps too much focus on a handful of detectives involved. The court cases are described in a lot of detail, there’s a lot of people to remember, and where photos could have been used to help clarify gang members, they weren't. 

This book reads like a text book, making it difficult to keep focused, particularly when the court room stuff came around. This books isn't an overview of the Mexican Mafia, like I expected and hoped for, but I still got a fair understanding of how the Eme operates. However, I would have liked more on how the mafia was created and how it grew. 

That said, it has made me more curious about the Mexican Mafia and I'd like to find a book that's more mafia-centric than detective-centric.  

Mania by LJ Ross

4.0

This book settled me into this series a bit more. It's not on par with DCI Ryan (yet) but Alex's story seemed to move forward in this book. 

Alex gets roped into investigating a death and putting together a profile on the killer. We get more background information on Alex and Bill's failed profiling unit and some potential romantic interest for Alex. I was enjoying the vibe of this book very early on and I couldn’t shake the Hot Fuzz vibes I was getting (

dead theatre actor, deaths staged as suicides

)😂 I could see Ross was trying to make me doubt Bill (not cool) and then she made me think

he'd died

(not cool, again). The story wasn't wrapped up in this book and I might need to crack straight on with book 5.

Perfect State by Brandon Sanderson

3.5

• The concept was really interesting
• A Wax and Wayne feel to the humour
• The connection between Kai and Sophie was good
• Good twist ending
• I'm glad I read it but I'm pretty certain that non-Cosmere books just aren't for me. 

What They Said About Luisa by Erika Rummel

4.0

I really liked the structure of this book. Each chapter is one very detailed POV for each character (who only appears once), but this brings the story together well. This structure made Luisa feel like something of an enigma because we learn about Luisa through 'what they said about Luisa' (clever title *smiley*). We get all of these different perspectives about this woman who is quite reserved and at the same time has quite a big impact on a number of individuals over the course of the story. At the 12% mark I wondered if we would get to see what Luisa is like and if she'll match up to the demonised character she'd been made out to be in some POVs, but interestingly, we don’t hear from Luisa at all. Instead, the other characters are so well developed that we get the vast majority of Luisa's story through them. It took me a few chapters for me to stop wondering how the other POVs were relevant to Luisa’s story, but each chapter comes together, It just would've been nice to maybe have an epilogue from Luisa's POV to round off the story but regardless, this was a really good book. 

The Queen of the Cicadas by V. Castro

5.0

The vibe of this book is exactly what I have been looking for in a book set in Mexico and I just knew that V. Castro was going to be the one to deliver it!

Initially, Belinda didn't feel like a main character I was going to get on board with, but she got better as the story went on. Tanya is vile! Ugh, that woman. When an author can make me hate a person who is just words on a page, that is good writing. I've read a few Mexico books over the past week and a common theme in them is the way Mexicans are treated and spoken to or about. In this book, there are a number of infuriating examples including:

• the disregard the wife of the American farm owner shows when the crime (committed on her land) is brought to her attention,
• law enforcement commenting "ain't she ugly" upon seeing Milagros' mutilated body and saying that if Milagros was just barely alive they could've "come to some agreement" (presumably to make sure the perpetrators don't face punishment for her horrific murder)😑

The way that Milagros was murdered was horrific. It was reminiscent of the Rodolfo Soler lynching I read about in Fernanda Melchor's This Is Not Miami. Minus the cicadas, obviously.

I enjoy Castro's writing; the atmosphere, the weirdness, the Aztec mythology. I wasn't familiar with Ix Chel or Mictēcacihuātl (Lady of the Dead), so reading about them was fascinating! I always appreciate a book that makes me want to research people and events.  I'm so glad I went into this one after reading some of Castro's other work because it's easily my favourite by her and is one of my top reads of the year so far! 

I absolutely loved this quote:

"The scene was reminiscent of the founding of Tenochtitlan, or Mexico City as we call it now. When the wandering Aztecs saw an eagle perched on a Nopal cactus with a snake in its beak, they took it as a sign from their god, Huitzilopochtli, to build a great city there." 

Dust by Hugh Howey

4.0

This was a great end to the silo series. It was great how they tied the silos' stories together. I thought this was better than Shift but it made me want to revisit Shift, because I know I wasn't as invested in those characters, after the swift change in cast from Wool to Shift. It was fab to be back with the characters from Wool. I'm looking forward to season 2 of Silo! 

The Bullet Swallower by Elizabeth Gonzalez James

4.5

There was a time when I never would have imagined that I'd be reading a magical realism western about a Mexican bandido, but here we are. 

The first third of the book wasn't doing it for me but then all of a sudden I was engrossed. The story is told in alternating timelines

where both POVs are encountering death in 'human' form

. The characters include likeable people, downright detestable people and those who are morally grey but are definitely more bad than good (maybe). The story has a

supernatural

element but it feels really subtly done. It has an old western feel but is mainly told from the POV of Antonio, a Mexican Bandido. The other main POV is Jaime, the grandson of Antonio, who knows nothing about his grandfather until an old book is delivered to him, detailing Antonio's past exploits. 

Antonio starts out as a character I really didn’t like and yet as the story progressed, I felt myself hoping he didn't get caught by the Rangers. Antonio is a complicated antihero, his POV is violent and dark, he

has treated people horribly (including his wife) and his brother's death directly resulted from a decision Antonio made, but then he is brought back down to earth with a crash and it was good to see him humbled

. I'd love to see artwork of Antonio

after his injury because he sounded very disfigured

and I imagine this added to the Texas Rangers hatred of him (along with him simply being Mexican, of course). Later in the story we meet Peter, who brings some light-hearted humour to a very dark story. Antonio is unsure of Peter's intentions early on but I loved the Peter and Antonio pair up immediately - possibly because of Peter's

English humour

😄👌🏻thankfully Jaime's POV is not the main POV, as I really preferred what was going on with Antonio.

The author's note informs us that the story is based on

the author's great grandfather, Antonio who was a bandido in the late 1800s

. I enjoyed the story regardless of this information but that was fascinating to me. I'd also recommend the audiobook for this book because the narrator was great.

Thanks to NetGalley for the eARC in exchange for an honest review. 

The Seventh Veil of Salome by Silvia Moreno-Garcia

5.0

The Seventh Veil of Salome showcases the golden age of Hollywood through a range of POVs which all bring something different to the story. One thing that Silvia Moreno-Garcia writes really well is women who are complex to the point of becoming villains. 

Nancy is a character who I found so easy to despise and while you can argue that she is also so pitiable, I could not bring myself to care about her. Whereas, Vera is a protagonist to root for. She is 'discovered' and thrust from her simpler life as a receptionist in Mexico into the lead role of Salome in The Seventh Veil of Salome, as a result she becomes the focus of Nancy's envy. Despite Nancy's own decisions causing her problems, she fails to see this and instead she believes that Vera has “stolen” her role of Salome. The anger she directs at Vera is detestable and nearly every comment she makes about/towards Vera is racially driven, calling Vera things like a 'beaner' and saying Vera "has a face like a tortilla, all flat". This anger is clearly driven by the fact that Nancy has no power whatsoever in Hollywood and has no means to fight the people who are actually preventing her from being successful. Vera is also on the receiving end of verbal assaults from her own family along with the imposed rules of gender coming from both her relatives and from Hollywood, she also has to put up with men who feel entitled to her, who then try to smear her name when she says no. What's really interesting to me is that SMG wrote this story about a character from the bible and I didn't even realise until I got to the author's note. 

The range of POVs is really good and includes the main characters as well as  intermittent snippets from other characters who who bring in alternative perspectives on events happening in the main POVs. If you're an audiobook person, these POVs are narrated in a full cast audiobook, which is really good. The book has scenes from The Seventh Veil of Salome interspersed into the story. As a whole, this story felt like a 4.5* the whole way through but due to how invested I was, the great audio narration and the author's note, I had to give it a 5*. This is possibly my favourite SMG book so far. 

Thank you NetGalley for an eArc in exchange for an honest review. 

This Is Not Miami by Fernanda Melchor

4.0

An interesting collection of stories and these are the ones that stood out to me for one reason or another:

• Lights in the Sky:
  kids seeing UFOs that turn out to be narco planes
• Queen, Slave, Woman:
  a woman killed her two kids
   
• A Jail Out of the Movies:
  Mel Gibson uses a prison to film and the inmates are all relocated
• Ballad of the Burned Man:
  alleged rapist/murderer lynched by Mexican citizens
• The House on El Estero:
  haunted house and kids/teens, which gave me IT crossed with Exorcist vibes
• Good Asset:
  El Fito the drug dealer

There were a couple of points in the book where I struggled to follow some of the sentences, but I wonder if these are very minor translation errors. Overall, a really good range of stories and I'd like to read more story collections like this, which (I believe) are nonfiction stories and show a broader picture of Mexico. I did also look up some of the stories while I was reading the book because I was so fascinated. 

War Lord by Bernard Cornwell

4.5

I really appreciate this series for it's consistency and for how much of a comfort read it is. I've read the books in amongst watching the series (I still have the Netflix movie to watch, though) and I will definitely be reading the series again (and again).

War Lord has a surprisingly well wrapped up finale but

it's so sad that his oldest son died RIGHT AFTER THEY'D MADE UP

!!! It makes sense to

let Uhtred rest in his old age at his beloved Bebbanburg

🥰 I get such a warm and fuzzy feeling when I think of

Uhtred resting at his beloved Bebbanburg

. Also,

Finan lives until the end as well

🥰🤸‍♀️🤗🎉😍 

I highly recommend this series for people who are interested in the history of England. I'm not normally very interested in English history (despite living in England) but this series has fascinated me and piqued my interest from the first book (and the first episode of The Last Kingdom). Even though Cornwell acknowledges that he has strayed from history in the books, it's still obvious how much research he did for these books. In every TLK book review I have commended Cornwell on his writing, but it is particularly his battle scenes that I find to be so well written - they are engrossing. 

 While, the show has also deviated from the books, I like that and it's good to see the two iterations of this story. I've enjoyed both and I believe I read somewhere that Cornwell has said that he is happy to see the different direction that the show takes too. It's highly likely that I've missed some details but I'll pick these up on the multiple series rereads I plan to do.

 Wyrd bið ful ãræd 🥰