Silver Nitrate
NATIONAL BESTSELLER - From the author of The Daughter of Doctor Moreau and Mexican Gothic comes a fabulous meld of Mexican horror movies and Nazi occultism: a dark thriller about the curse that haunts a legendary lost film--and awakens one woman's hidden powers.
"No one punctures the skin of reality to reveal the lurking, sinister magic beneath better than Silvia Moreno-Garcia."--Kiersten White, author of Hide LOCUS AWARD FINALIST - A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR: The New York Times Book Review, The Washington Post, Tordotcom, Polygon, CrimeReads, BookPage, Book Riot Montserrat has always been overlooked. She's a talented sound editor, but she's left out of the boys' club running the film industry in '90s Mexico City. And she's all but invisible to her best friend, Tristán, a charming if faded soap opera star, though she's been in love with him since childhood. Then Tristán discovers his new neighbor is the cult horror director Abel Urueta, and the legendary auteur claims he can change their lives--even if his tale of a Nazi occultist imbuing magic into highly volatile silver nitrate stock sounds like sheer fantasy. The magic film was never finished, which is why, Urueta swears, his career vanished overnight. He is cursed. Now the director wants Montserrat and Tristán to help him shoot the missing scene and lift the curse . . . but Montserrat soon notices a dark presence following her, and Tristán begins seeing the ghost of his ex-girlfriend. As they work together to unravel the mystery of the film and the obscure occultist who once roamed their city, Montserrat and Tristán may find that sorcerers and magic are not only the stuff of movies.
"No one punctures the skin of reality to reveal the lurking, sinister magic beneath better than Silvia Moreno-Garcia."--Kiersten White, author of Hide LOCUS AWARD FINALIST - A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR: The New York Times Book Review, The Washington Post, Tordotcom, Polygon, CrimeReads, BookPage, Book Riot Montserrat has always been overlooked. She's a talented sound editor, but she's left out of the boys' club running the film industry in '90s Mexico City. And she's all but invisible to her best friend, Tristán, a charming if faded soap opera star, though she's been in love with him since childhood. Then Tristán discovers his new neighbor is the cult horror director Abel Urueta, and the legendary auteur claims he can change their lives--even if his tale of a Nazi occultist imbuing magic into highly volatile silver nitrate stock sounds like sheer fantasy. The magic film was never finished, which is why, Urueta swears, his career vanished overnight. He is cursed. Now the director wants Montserrat and Tristán to help him shoot the missing scene and lift the curse . . . but Montserrat soon notices a dark presence following her, and Tristán begins seeing the ghost of his ex-girlfriend. As they work together to unravel the mystery of the film and the obscure occultist who once roamed their city, Montserrat and Tristán may find that sorcerers and magic are not only the stuff of movies.
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Community Reviews
It took me a while to get through this book, but I think ultimately I enjoyed it. The two leads with alternating perspectives are very different from each other and both have their own flaws and strengths. I feel like turning their friendship into a romance in the very last chapter didn't quite work. I would have liked a little more development throughout to make it feel less sudden. For a horror book, I would say the horror elements are fairly mild. I enjoyed learning about Mexican film and culture. The story is set in 1993, but the characters reflect on Mexico's past as well. I got a little bored with the villain backstory and spending time with the older, somewhat underdeveloped characters that were there to provide threats, rescues, and exposition mostly. I would recommend if you like the idea of niche horror movies, but don't actually want a book with really disturbing or gruesome scenes, and don't mind a slower pace that's more character focused.
My first and not my last my Silvia Moreno-Garcia
I REALLY love the premise of the book. Me starting it was a little bit of perfect alignment. It is exactly what my heart needed. The film history, as well as Mexican history in here made it such a great read. The FMC Montserrat, stepping into her witchy powers, as she tries to navigate and find out who she is in this specific time of the story, is awesome. Tristan, her bestie, is super vain and stumbling along with gripping his fame, or fame adjacent lifestyle. Monsterrat's unconditional love for her bestie, truly personifies all his flaws and opened me up to find the good in him. As both of the two besties evolve through out the story my admiration for both grew as well.
The premise of investigating this mystery that is LITERALLY haunting them set up for this eery setting that had me on edge. I loved this experience. I was so curious and slightly spooked, I also learned a bunch. I consider this a very fulfilling read!
I REALLY love the premise of the book. Me starting it was a little bit of perfect alignment. It is exactly what my heart needed. The film history, as well as Mexican history in here made it such a great read. The FMC Montserrat, stepping into her witchy powers, as she tries to navigate and find out who she is in this specific time of the story, is awesome. Tristan, her bestie, is super vain and stumbling along with gripping his fame, or fame adjacent lifestyle. Monsterrat's unconditional love for her bestie, truly personifies all his flaws and opened me up to find the good in him. As both of the two besties evolve through out the story my admiration for both grew as well.
The premise of investigating this mystery that is LITERALLY haunting them set up for this eery setting that had me on edge. I loved this experience. I was so curious and slightly spooked, I also learned a bunch. I consider this a very fulfilling read!
“Silver Nitrate” ended up being such a fun read, and once it got going, ended up being a pretty quick one too. While it may have ended up being much more predictable than I was wanting it to be, it still was bonkers enough to go along on a ride with. It was fairly simple to understand, which was nice, since many of the subjects here could easily get convoluted and messy to understand. The characters felt flushed out, which made for attachments that I wasn’t expecting to have. It wasn’t as spooky or supernatural as I had anticipated it to be, since that description lead me down a different path than the actual book did, but that made for a very fun read in the end. I’ll definitely be checking out more from Moreno-Garcia in the near future.
Overall, I really enjoyed this. It had solid characters, an interesting plot, actual character development, and I enjoyed the cultural enrichment piece. This is the reason I'm reading diverse authors because White people and European history is boring. Monserrat as a main character was satisfying. She's not taking any shit from the men, she's sticking to her convictions, but she's relatable because here she is with this soft spot for the idiot boy next door. The subplot of Monserrat and Tristan's friendship paid off in a satisfying way that was completely unnecessary and you saw coming immediately, but loved nonetheless when it happened. My favorite sequence of the book is the last bit from the place where the final scene is held burning down to Tristan confessing. All of the setting, dialogue, etc was really well done. In comparison to Mexican Gothic, this was lightyears better. My only complaint, and why this book isn't 5 stars, is because for a horror book there was certainly a lack of horror. Except for a few sequences I could see showing up on a censored TV horror film, this could have been a psychological thriller at best. The pacing was also slow in the beginning which made it difficult to get into.
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