Welcome to Litsy!

#dynamicds #dessert
@Eggs @alwaysbeenaloverofbooks

“Every 2 hours and 25 minutes, a woman in #Mexico is strangled, raped, dismembered, burned alive, mutilated, beaten to pulp, and left with bruises and broken bones.”

Combine these gruesome facts on femicide with living the high life of drugs, money, cosmetic surgery and Instagram followers and you probably have the span of Mexican society and of this #InternationalBooker collection of short stories. A good one.

#ReadingTheWorld2025

In this atmospheric noir novel set in Mexico in the 1970s, Maite is a dissatisfied secretary who livens up her life with romance comics, lies, and the occasional petty theft, while Elvis is a member of the Hawks, hired thugs trained to violently disrupt student protests. As they both become embroiled in the search for a missing young woman, Maite and Elvis each seek escape through music and glimpses of beauty in a tedious and often violent world.

Not going to lie, I struggled with this book because I read it in Spanish. It was full of mysticism and was a great insight into the hardships of an abandoned town in Mexico during the cristero period as Juan Preciado returns to find his father.
I‘ll eventually reread it in English because I feel I may have lost some nuances. Overall, I recommend.

5 ⭐️ for the content and engaging style.

Very valuable in helping to understand the mechanisms of migration in Latin America. Jason spent 6 years among and studying the culture of human smugglers.

The word “hope” in the subtitle is misleading. It‘s not hope for the crisis ending, it‘s the hope both migrants and many smugglers have of escaping desperate poverty & violence.

Now downloading his first book which is focused on migrants.

34% in and I can tell this is going to be a very memorable and informative book.

Violence is the handmaiden of poverty.

Enjoyed this one. I think some would find the characters a bit unlikeable, but it's at the level where I'm happy enough. The ending felt a bit twee, but I'll definitely pick up another by the author (I think I have at least one more from a past 99p spree).

I‘ve been working my way through this over the past few days, and enjoying it so far. The mp3-ereader is great for queues and suchlike - I‘m surprised and impressed by how much book I can get through in a shopping trip.

This book is amazing! Picture books are a great opportunity for talking about injustice, but few of them bring up the topic of murder. This is really a middle grade book. The illustrations are amazing. But I love seeing the kids faces when I tell them that when I wake a little girl, I was not allowed to wear pants at school, and I'm not even that old! I also describe myself as having brown hair, so...

I was looking forward to reading a light and enjoyable novel. I saw the movie ages ago but hardly remembered the plot line. This wonderful story filled with magic and recipes was a delight. Passionate love sustained over the years and a woman whose cooking will create lust and chaos within those who enjoy her meals is always fun to read about.