Reviews tagging 'Vomit'

Silver Nitrate by Silvia Moreno-Garcia

13 reviews

boba_nbooks's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional mysterious tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

Spice Rating: 🫑 / 5 🌶️

Silvia Moreno-Garcia does not disappoint. Silver Nitrate had me on the edge of my seat and is terrifying in all the right ways.

Monserrat and Tristán have been friends since they were kids, and though Monserrat has been in love with Tristán all these years, he is oblivious to her feelings. The boys' club running the film industry in Mexico City in the 90s leaves no place for Monserrat, even though she's an extremely talented sound editor. As an aging actor, Tristán is also starting to feel left out of the industry, too. So when he finds out that his new neighbor is a cult horror director who wants to work with himself and Monserrat, Tristán wants to jump in without any hesitation. However, Monserrat is a little more cautious. The director, Abel,  wants the two of them to help him finish a film that he never got the chance to complete, but that film has left everyone who has touched it with bad fortune. The person Abel originally worked with on the film was a Nazi who believed creating this film would bring them magical powers. Abel believes finishing the film will lift the curse and bring fortune and fame, as well as magic, to the trio, but once they start working on it, strange things start to happen that leave Monserrat and Tristán wondering just what they got themselves into.

This novel focuses on how obsession with the occult can drive people to go to the extreme. It also explored the art of film, especially horror movies, and how all of the pieces come together to create a sort of magic--and in this story, the magic happened to be real. After being powerless her whole life, both in her career and in her own body, Monserrat has to decide what to do with the very real power she gets ahold of. She has to choose whether power is the most important thing to her. 

Similarly to one of Silvia Moreno-Garcia's other novels, Mexican Gothic, this was a very atmospheric read. Silver Nitrate explores ritual and how the past can still permeate the present. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Death, Gore, Misogyny, Blood, and Murder

Moderate: Ableism, Chronic illness, Racism, Xenophobia, Antisemitism, Car accident, Cultural appropriation, Colonisation, and Classism

Minor: Addiction, Alcoholism, Biphobia, Cancer, Cursing, and Vomit

vixenreader's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional funny hopeful informative inspiring mysterious tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.75

A tribute to foreign cinema, adversity, and overcoming your own demons, this book inspires everyone to embrace their own magic. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Ableism, Alcoholism, Body horror, Body shaming, Cursing, Death, Drug abuse, Drug use, Racism, Violence, Xenophobia, Blood, Grief, Car accident, Death of parent, Murder, Fire/Fire injury, Alcohol, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Addiction, Biphobia, Bullying, Gore, Mental illness, Misogyny, Panic attacks/disorders, Sexism, Sexual content, Cultural appropriation, War, and Classism

Minor: Animal death, Cancer, Child abuse, Terminal illness, Torture, Vomit, Kidnapping, Stalking, and Colonisation

Be aware that this novel features ageism, toxic workplace environments, Nazism, cults, occult rituals, violence with knives, harming one’s self for rituals, and people being crashed by large instruments.

taelorfiller's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional mysterious tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.0

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Content Warnings

Minor: Vomit

reddeddy's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Ableism, Animal cruelty, Cancer, Cursing, Death, Panic attacks/disorders, Racism, Self harm, Terminal illness, Toxic relationship, Violence, Xenophobia, Blood, Antisemitism, Grief, Medical trauma, Car accident, Murder, Fire/Fire injury, Toxic friendship, Abandonment, Alcohol, Injury/Injury detail, and Classism

Moderate: Addiction, Animal death, Body horror, Bullying, Confinement, Drug abuse, Drug use, Genocide, Gore, Misogyny, Sexism, Suicide, Vomit, Medical content, Religious bigotry, Stalking, Cultural appropriation, Gaslighting, Sexual harassment, and Colonisation

clovetra's review against another edition

adventurous mysterious slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

2.0

ok by self-admission this lowkey kinda breaks my "lgbt authors and/or stories only for june" but... the story says both leads are bisexual so it counts in my eyes! 
now, other than that... this book was erm... not my style!
i think 2-stars is a tad harsh, but i dont like to give half-star ratings and 3-stars seems too.... nice.
my biggest BIGGEST issue is that the plot is so fantastical. and im not talking about the actual elements. like yeah no duh a story about a cursed movie with runes and witchcraft and shit is gonna be fantasy-based. but like this plot was so.....
first off, blurb is a liar. the blurb does NOT reflect the proper story sorry. like i thought this would be a cute thriller or horror... you know... like the book says. but i would say this has literally zero horror elements. well maybe one or two but like in a 315-page book? nah that doesnt meet the horror genre. this is magical realism and/or fantasy. 
also the plot literally is all over the place. most of the time i had no idea what was going on. like at the beginning i could keep up! but then after things felt rushed, explanations felt wishy-washy, and i was waiting for this to be over. honestly the only thing that kept me reading this was montserrat. shes a baddie, an icon, a fellow cripple queen, and the bisexual icon we DESERVE. 
another grievance is that the plot took so long to start. like when the mystical elements are introduced  >50% in the story.... its a chop im afraid.
ending felt weird, epilogue feels forced, story went from x character being resistant to what was going on to participating in like 50 pages.
idk man i think i might have liked this more if i didnt go in with false expectations. false expectations, mind you, the blurb of the book & its categorisations on storygraph + goodreads provided.
anyways i will say this was not a horror book you cannot convince me of that. its a thriller at best. but because i literally did not care about any character other than montserrat it was not thrilling.
this book was a let down and i can feel it begging to drag me into a slump. did not have fun.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Ableism, Death, Drug abuse, Blood, Murder, and Alcohol

Moderate: Panic attacks/disorders, Vomit, Car accident, and Fire/Fire injury

paloverdepages's review against another edition

adventurous dark mysterious medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.0

I instantly have a soft spot for this book. The author has definitely found her audience with me; I love film history and magic, and I'm not familiar with the movie making scene of 1993 Mexico or the details of the Nazi's esoteric practices. There's lots of jargon, but not knowing it all doesn't interrupt the reading experience at all. It does start a bit slow, but once it gets going it doesn't let up. It really kept me guessing the whole way through and I was happy to be along for the ride. However, there's already so much going on in this book that we really didn't need the romance. It felt disappointing and forced.

I can suspend my disbelief at them running into and befriending their favorite forgotten director, but I did have a bit of an issue with

how much information he explicitly laid out for them (for the reader's benefit?).

My editor brain kicked on for some word choices and minor plot things. The intersection of Mexican film history and Nazi occultism and conspiracies is a pretty niche topic, but I think that some of the

pages upon pages of them meeting are too heavy on Urueta talking about this stuff. And some of the dialogue between the three of them seems a bit too explanatory (again, for the reader's benefit?)

. I did like the smaller scenes

of Montserrat researching

that broke up these instances.

Another thing that bothered me was how many times it was mentioned that Montserrat was wearing graphic t-shirt with a different movie poster on it? And more importantly, how some storylines seemed to be dropped or forgotten about. I don't think

the plot with Montserrat's sister having cancer was woven in as well as it could have been, or any information about her mother

, and I was super intrigued by Tristán's past and I wish we got a little bit more of that. It took a while to reveal anything substantial about him, and I wanted to hear more about

maybe his upbringing in a Lebanese family in Mexico, or his bisexuality in the film scene of the 90s (and Montserrat is bi too! Cool how normal it's treated, but I want DETAILS!)

. His character has depth that's only pointed at. It might be asking for too much given the type of story this is, but I wanted more from the character's backstories.

I also wanted a bit more from the setting. I LOVED the mentions of how the scene was becoming more Americanized, and I would have been interested to hear more about that through maybe some interactions that Montserrat or Tristán had with other people. 

The overall plot is good, it just doesn't quite come together thematically. It touches on lots of interesting aspects without exploring any of them to their full potential. I think maybe this book needed another good once-over, but I've definitely enjoyed it to want to look into the rest of the author's work and maybe do some research of my own on what inspired her. 

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Ableism, Death, Racism, Sexism, Grief, Murder, and Cultural appropriation

Minor: Addiction, Alcoholism, Biphobia, Cancer, Drug abuse, Drug use, Blood, Vomit, Car accident, and Alcohol

katndrsn's review against another edition

adventurous dark tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? N/A
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Animal death, Body horror, Death, and Violence

Moderate: Ableism, Addiction, Cancer, Terminal illness, and Toxic friendship

Minor: Suicidal thoughts and Vomit

heather667's review against another edition

dark emotional tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Ableism, Biphobia, Bullying, Chronic illness, Death, Gore, Misogyny, Racism, Suicidal thoughts, Violence, Blood, Grief, Car accident, Murder, and Fire/Fire injury

Moderate: Genocide, Suicide, Vomit, Suicide attempt, and War

ecn's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.25

This book is SMG at her core and I really liked the concept of the book! The only drawbacks were that it REALLY seemed like the story dragged on for too long at different moments and (like classic SMG) sped up super quickly at the end. I also felt like I didn’t get enough out of the main characters other than sho they are at their surface level. I think this book would greatly benefit from a sequel and building out this world more. 
The writing was spectacular and the fantasy elements kept me entertained. I just wish it was edited a bit better and a whole lot spookier (then maybe I could feel fine with not dive too deep into the characters?). 
However I will say the biggest win is having two messy/annoying bisexuals obsessed with horror (kinda) as the MCs. Huge representation win lol

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Ableism, Addiction, Animal death, Body horror, Cancer, Death, Drug abuse, Drug use, Gore, Misogyny, Racism, Sexism, Toxic relationship, Violence, Xenophobia, Blood, Vomit, Antisemitism, Grief, Murder, Fire/Fire injury, Cultural appropriation, Toxic friendship, and Colonisation

sarah984's review against another edition

dark mysterious slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.0

I really liked the premise of this novel (literal movie magic!) but I found the execution so dull. Most of the characters' motivations are just straight up fed to you in exposition and neither of the point of view characters is especially compelling. None of the attempted emotional beats with them land at all because they don't feel like people with real lives and goals. The '90s Mexico setting was cool and there were a few good scares but overall not that great.

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Addiction, Death, Racism, Self harm, Toxic relationship, Violence, Blood, Grief, Stalking, Car accident, Murder, Fire/Fire injury, and Injury/Injury detail

Minor: Ableism, Animal death, Cancer, Infidelity, Suicide, and Vomit