Velvet Was The Night, Silvia Moreno-Garcia
Received to review via Netgalley; publication date 17th August 2021
I’ve enjoyed Silvia Moreno-Garcia’s other books, so I clicked for this one on Netgalley more or less on auto-pilot, and because the idea of reading historical fiction set in a period/place I don’t know much about sounded interesting. It’s set in Mexico in the 1970s, and follows two main characters: Maite, a lover of romance comics who gets accidentally pulled into intrigue as a result of minding her neighbour’s cat, and Elvis, a lover of rock-n-roll and part of a gang dedicated to crushing student dissent against the government.
Neither of the characters is likeable for me, which is where things fall down. This is a really personal thing, but it’s always an issue for me — I can enjoy a story without characters I love, but it’s usually got to be something more in my usual wheelhouse. The characters are interesting, in that they’re well-written. Particularly in the case of Maite, who I could imagine very well. But… without quite being able to hang my hat on either of them, at all, because they’re both pretty unpleasant as people… I just checked out.
If you’re really interested in the period and/or in historical fiction and noir-feel fiction, this will probably be more your thing than it was mine (where SF/F is still my main genre). I did find the historical context fascinating — I kept looking things up to get a bit more context. I might give it another try in future, but for now, it didn’t really work for me.
As a reminder about my ratings in this case, since it’s so much a case of “it’s not you, it’s me”: take this with a grain of salt; as always with my ratings, it’s based on my personal taste and how much I liked it. And sometimes not-so-keen reviews can still point the way for other readers who think “but that sounds like it’s right up my street”!
I’ve been wanting to try this author but not sure if this is where I would start. I can deal with unlikable characters sometimes, I guess it just depends on the story…
Sorry this one wasn’t great for you! .
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Hmmmm, yeah, I don’t think I’d start here. But I would say that, since I didn’t like it! I most liked The Beautiful Ones, but I think it may be the least typical of her work!
I requested this book on NetGalley because you had previously posted about it, and ended up not liking it AT ALL. I DNF-ed it. I don’t quite know why I could not get into it, but it was so not for me. I loved Mexican Gothic and as so psyched to try another of her books but things did not go well here. Your review sums up a lot of what I was feeling.
Glad I put my finger on it! For me it was really mostly the characters, and also the slow build-up.
I usually enjoy unlikable characters, but they were flat and unlikable, so that was part of it for me I think. Nothing made them interesting even in their unlikable-ness.