tldegray
8/23/2015
Hold on a moment while I slip into some stirrup pants, a knit sweater from The Limited, and my pink leather flats because we are going back to the 80s. This book takes place in 1989 and 2009, the former when Meche was a teenager and the latter when she returned home to Mexico City for a family event.
The 80s stuff was so great. I was a teenager in the 80s, though I'm a few years older than Meche, and everything was on point. The clothes, the hair, and most especially the music anchor you in place. (I have so many notes about songs I want to listen to.) And it was so very teenager, if you remember how it was back then, so full of the feeling that you were on the brink of something magical. And in Meche's case, she truly was.
The Oughts stuff of this novel somehow felt less locked into place than the 80s stuff, and to great effect because even though the Oughts were the "present" of this novel, it's the 80s that were the center of the story.
Meche is so great. When she's a teenager she's... well, she's a teenager. She lets the power she's always been denied go to her head and she is impetuous and sometimes cruel. And she's stubborn and almost humorously cannot share her emotions with anyone. She retains some of that emotional immaturity as an adult, but she's trying to deal with it, and her doing so results in one of the best scenes in the novel.
This is a book of flawed people doing the best they can, about magic and music, and about love.
[I received this book free from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.]