Tag: Magical Realism

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The Daughter of Doctor Moreau by Silvia Moreno-Garcia

Set in the Mexican Yucatán, this is a story about a mad scientist, his human-hybrid creations, and his insidious intentions. It is also an adaptation of H.G. Wells’ The Island of Doctor Moreau, but with a fresh feminist perspective.

The Daughter of Doctor Moreau by Silvia Moreno-Garcia

Historical Fiction | Science Fiction | Horror

Doctor Moreau is a man of science and a purported man of God. Ironically, and hypocritically, though, he uses scientific experiments to play god over his creations, animal-human hybrids who he and his patron hope to use for slave labor. When the doctors daughter Carlotta starts asking questions about the world she has always known, she discovers a tangled web of secrets and lies—and must decide which side she wants to be on.

“Her whole life had been a pretty fiction, a story the doctor had spun.”

Silvia Moreno-Garcia, The Daughter of Doctor Moreau

In SMG style, this story is oozing with gothic language, vintage fashion, complex characters, fast-paced action, and sizzling romance.

Silvia Moreno-Garcia is one of my auto-buy authors because everything she writes is golden. She uses beautiful images and paints stunning magical settings just with a few words. I love her style, and The Daughter of Dr. Moreau is as good as Moreno-Garcia’s previous works. I especially loved Mexican Gothic, and Gods of Jade and Shadow. This is yet another great and amazing tale from one of the greatest storytellers of our Generation.

Thank you to Netgalley for gifting me an eARC of this title. All opinions are my own.

Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia

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Lobizona: Undocumented. Unprotected. Unafraid.

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If you enjoy magical realism, you will love Romina Garber’s newest book Lobizona. I have seen this title around on bookstagram for a while and the cover is what really drew me in. I absolutely love the art style, but the title seemed really interesting also. I was delighted to find the naked book is just as beautiful as the sleeve!

Romina Garber | Zodiac, Beautiful book covers, Book quotes

Netgalley gifted me a free e-ARC of this title, which I am so grateful for! It allowed me to start reading it, which sucked me in after the first few pages. I got about halfway through on Kindle before deciding to buy the physical copy. For one, I wanted to support this author (I devoured her Zodiac series a few years ago!) and two, I ended up taking a lot of annotations which I wanted to keep. And I bounced back and forth between the e-book and the physical copy; the e-book is amazing for reading in bed, but the physical is better for daytime reading (and is less of a strain on my eyes, TBH.)

“We use magical realism in our daily lives too. Consider our superstitions. We are always willing magic into reality—that’s our way.”

I love that this book was stippled with Spanish aphorisms and phrases, and included an impressive amount of vocabulary in-context to help teach Spanish to non-speakers. As someone who is constantly trying to improve my Spanish, this is something I really appreciate seeing in new books. Garber does it well, allowing the reader to infer meaning from context clues without needing to use a translator. However, I can really appreciate having the translation dictionary available if I do need it, conveniently built into my e-reader. It saves a lot of time not having to click out of the book, and as a visual learner I enjoy seeing side-by-side translations because it really helps me understand spelling and pronunciation. Continue reading “Lobizona: Undocumented. Unprotected. Unafraid.”

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Lotería

Lotería was the 2013 debut novel of Mario Alberto Zambrano.

With her older sister Estrella in the ICU and her father in jail, eleven-year-old Luz Castillo has been taken into the custody of the state. Alone in her room, she retreats behind a wall of silence, writing in her journal and shuffling through a deck of lotería cards. Each of the cards’ colorful images—mermaids, bottles, spiders, death, and stars—sparks a random memory.

Pieced together, these snapshots bring into focus the joy and pain of the young girl’s life, and the events that led to her present situation. But just as the story becomes clear, a breathtaking twist changes everything.

This book was stippled with Spanish aphorisms and phrases, and included an impressive amount of vocabulary in-context, to help teach Spanish to non-speakers. A full deck of Lotería cards is presented back-to-front, to mark the chapters, as if the reader is flipping a card when turning the page, reminiscent of Isabelle Allende and Salvador Plascencia’s magical realism. Image result for loteria el nopal

“I didn’t feel like remembering today so I laid out the cards close to each other so that they were touching like tiles, like El Nopal.” (175).

Luz associates her memories with the Lotería cards, using them to prompt her, to spark her memories. Than she writes about it in her journal. As we read her diary — addressed to “You”, always capitalized, in reference to the reader, or in reference to a higher power — we understand the trauma she is trying to run from. Continue reading “Lotería”

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