Mexico City, 1988, 15 year old Merche is an awkward
outcast at school along with her best friends. Her passion, what keeps her
going, is music; her all consuming obsession
And it is through these vinyl records that she discovers
something greater – magic. And what can three outcast teens do with such
powers? Fix their broken lives… or make others pay?
And in 2009 Merche comes home to confront so many of the
shadows of her past and what happened when she was a teenager.
This review was exceedingly hard to write, I’ve restarted
3 or 4 times and I’m just going to have to plunge in and hope my thoughts land
in something resembling order.
This is a book I have a lot of respect and admiration
for. It portrays what it does with excellent depth, nuance and development. The
characters are really excellent – fully fleshed out people with so much detail
into their motives, their dreams, their lives. Everything they do is
understandable and natural and real – they’re not just characters, they’re
people.
Merche is our protagonist and she isn’t an easy character
to like because she is so human. She’s not always likeable, she’s certainly not
always fair. She’s aggressive and short tempered and she lashes out really
excessively to any perceived attack. She manipulates people and quite often she
treats her friends appallingly. She is very bad at seeing anything from any point
of view but her own. But none of this is unnatural or not understandable – she’s
an angry teenager who is not exactly leading her dream life and very sure of
her own rightness. Yet we have an angry teenager, with all the jealousies,
insecurities and desperate wishes of said angry teenager backed by the power of
magic – and how terribly that can be abused
The same applies to all the characters, to a lesser
degree because Merche’s confidence and leadership is what drives her so others
are more likely to follow in her wake. But we can see all of the point of view
characters (Merche, Sebastian, her father) doing things that we know are
self-destructive, we know will not end well but at the same time I can see why
they’d do them. We can see them do selfish, unwise and even outright terrible
things but we know why they’re doing it – not because they’re bad or foolish or
badly written, but because they are so very human. Everyone is humanised, even
side characters we’re not supposed to like much (or people that Merche takes an
intense dislike to) because they are people with motives and flaws.
Then there’s the romance – we have two excellently
contrasting romances: the classic, overwhelming emotional infatuation of
Sebastian and Merche for the respective, terrible love interests and the much
more mature and deeper love that both of them learn later. I like this a lot
because the classic teen romances they have are so common and tropey in the
genre while, at the same time, such an obvious trainwreck
This is all topped off by the way the book is split – between
adult Merche learning a little more about her father and reconnecting with
Sebastian – and how much more she matures. This makes it ultimately a story
about maturity, about growing and learning and accepting your mistakes from the
past even while you are still affected by them
So I have a lot to praise about this book… but… I can’t
say I enjoyed it, but a lot of that is for very personal taste reasons (yes, of
course any review relies on that). For example, music is a major part of
Merche’s life, it defines her experience, it’s the one constant in her every
experience. It’s meaningful in a way that goes beyond a mere hobby or interest.
While it’s an amazing element of her character, it’s also a barrier for me
simply because most of her references I don’t get and most of the rest I care
little about. It’s like being stuck on the bus next to someone who really wants
to tell you about X when you really really don’t care – it tells you so much
about the character, it’s amazing development – but that doesn’t mean I’m
actually interested in hearing it
And I feel really shallow for saying it – but I prefer
more woo-woo in my speculative fiction. There is magic here but it’s entirely
incidental to the real story which is the intense character development, the
very real lives these characters. This isn’t a story about magic – it’s about
characters growing up, it’s about real love vs crushes and infatuations. It’s
about intense emotion, anger and hatred, it’s about terrible decisions we make
because we’re foolish and angry and have big dreams. It’s about growing up and
learning and destroyed relationships…. It’s not about magic, it’s about so much
more than that. It is so character driven that the world, setting and even
genre is somewhat irrelevant. Which kind of leaves me a little outside as a
genre fan.
Every character in this book is Latino or Latina, they’re
all Mexican and the book is set in Mexico with a lot of excellent cultural
references everywhere. This is set in Mexico City and it’s more than just a
name – it’s not just “this generic city is Mexico City”, but we have culture,
media and food references that permeate the whole book without it feeling
clumsy or forced, it’s woven into the book as a natural part of it. It also
touches on some issues relating to race and ethnicity – especially with beauty
standards with those considered most attractive being fairer skinned and having
pale eyes compared to the dark and swarthy Merche and Sebastian
There is a lot of hatred of other women from Merche – she
uses and exploits Daniela and hates her mother and the popular pretty girl at
school. But then, the whole point of the book is that Merche is not an
infallible actor. She’s not fair, she’s not kind and she’s often not very nice –
the insights we see of someone of the people we hate are clear that Merche isn’t
actually all that fair or justified in her hate. She also has an excellent
relationship with her grandmother who is indulgent, sensible and protective.
There is also a depiction of sexual assault in the book – but the way it is
covered is a reasoned part of the story and is treated with the gravity and
caution it deserves
Daniela, one of Merche’s best friends, is disabled with
Lupus. It doesn’t define her character, it isn’t close to the main point of
this character but at the same time it does affect her, it affects what she can
do and how people treat her (and how she wishes they weren’t). Even if she’s
not looked at as often as Sebastian and Merche it’s still woven into her
character
There is a lot of homophobia in this book – Sebastian is
constantly attacked with homophobic slurs over and over – it’s gratuitous and
unnecessary (there are more insults out there) and stands out in a book that
has no LGBT characters (Sebastian is only ever presented as interested in
women). The slurs and attacks are not challenged to say homophobia is wrong –
it more has a sense that this is wrong because Sebastian is not gay. Homophobia
isn’t wrong, homophobia is wrong when inflicted on a straight person
Did I enjoy this book? No. I didn’t because it’s not my
thing, because it’s presence in our genre is incidental and I generally prefer
action/plot driven books to character driven ones. But I am impressed by this
book, immensely so. I am in awe of what it achieved, I can’t help by praise the
writing, the depictions and the sheer realness of the characters. It was a
deep, powerful book that deserves a high fang rating even if it wasn’t fun or
what I was looking for.
