Velvet was the Night: President Obama's Summer Reading List 2022 pick

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There’s also beautiful writing, which makes me eager to read more of the author’s books. I just didn’t connect at all to the characters or the content of this one. Had I read the end of the book before starting the beginning, I would have known this particular story wasn’t a great fit for me. The story is told through the POVs of the two main characters, Maite and Elvis. Maite is a secretary, who is always looking for excitement, and who somehow finds herself investigating the disappearance of her neighbor, Leonora; and Elvis is a hired gun, who is also looking for Leonora, howbeit for much different reasons than Maite. I didn't care for either of them - frankly, they were both annoying characters. Their two storylines also felt disconnected, which made the entire reading experience rather disjointed. Unfortunately, I just never felt any type of connection to the storyline or the characters, and the ending was also very anti-climactic. While I loved Moreno-Garcia's writing style in "Mexican Gothic," I found it choppy and almost redundant in this one. There were also too-many-to-count references to 1970's music, which I didn't find enjoyable in the least.

This is a noir, not a thriller. Both genres get confused. The stakes in noirs are smaller. Nino Frank says noirs are "essentially psychological narratives with the action—however violent or fast-paced—less significant than faces, gestures, words—than the truth of the characters.” Intrigued by the young woman's disappearance, Maite begins looking into Leonora's life. The mystery infuses Maite's life with an excitement she's never really had before. Why I kept falling in love with the book covers of Silvia Moreno Garcia’s! Isn’t this one gorgeous? Mexican Gothic’s cover is still my favorite but this smoky, mysterious vibes of the cover and author’s name made me dive into this one by going blind! A delicious, twisted treat for lovers of noir. Silvia Moreno-Garcia is a masterful writer who pulls you into her dark world and never lets you go. From the suspenseful, slow-burn plot to the crisp, desperate characters, you will be obsessed.” —Simone St. James, New York Times bestselling author of The Sun Down Motel One of the things I love about Moreno-Garcia’s writing, though, is that she never does the same thing twice. And for that reason it’s really difficult to anticipate what direction the story is going to take. Velvet Was the Night was an engrossing journey through a tumultuous period in Mexican history, and I thoroughly enjoyed every second of it.Now that I essentially just wrote a review about how Velvet Was the Night is the greatest thing since sliced bread, I will mention that the book was pretty slow at times. The book is focused on trying to find Leonora, but I think the characters spend way too much time on, "I don't know where she is. Do you?" Given the storyline, the book should have been trimmed down a bit. As soon as I heard about SMG writing a book set in the 70s, I had to have it! I am entranced by this time in history where so much happened. Velvet was the Night is an explosive combination of such classic ’70s thrillers as Three Days of the Condor and contemporary Mexican noir like Yuri Herrera’s celebrated Signs Preceding the End of the World. And they both have the MOST EXCELLENT taste in music. Seriously, their record collections are to die for.

This one ended and had me wishing I could begin another book by this author right away. Silvia Moreno-Garcia did a brilliant job of blending fiction with historical events. You can read her Author's note at the end as she details the events. She caught my eye with Mexican Gothic and I became a bigger fan with this book - I have to say I enjoyed this one more. Everyone is looking for Leonora, including a paramilitary group, and other unsavory thugs. Maite is caught up in the unfortunate events.

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Moreno-Garcia's ability to swing from fantasy to horror to mystery to historical is unparalleled. Her books always exist at some crossroad between those genres and while I certainly have my favorites, I've never left a Moreno-Garcia book disappointed. Maite is a lonely girl who is quite tired of her 9-5 boring job and wants nothing more to shed her boring image. So much so that she reads romantic comics and makes up stories putting herself into them. She is thrown into a dangerous adventure when her neighbor asks her to cat sit. With this stunning cover and engaging title, I expected an amazing story as well. I love Silvia's mexican gothic so much. It was one of my fav book of last year. So naturally I had really high expectations. Mexico City: while student protests and political unrest consume the city, Maite seeks escape from her humdrum life in the stories of passion and danger filling the latest issue of Secret Romance. I feel like the magic of this for me was in Moreno-Garcia's writing; it was the way it unfolded, the beauty behind the slow drama of it all. It's a special book, although admittedly, not for everyone.

Anyway, I didn't connect with the characters and I didn't care for their dilemma. I felt like I was watching the story but I was never involved or drawn in. I didn't like Maite, the main character. There was so much bloodshed in her country and all she cared about was not being a 30 year-old spinster and finding her true love but no one was ever good enough to meet her standards. I felt bored more than interested which is a shame.Elvis is a member of The Hawks. The Hawks were a government-trained paramilitary group. Elvis was an intriguing character. He grappled with using violence and cared about how others perceived him. Her fictional story is set in Mexico City and focuses on a romance comic-obsessed secretary named Maite who gets caught up in the disappearance of her beautiful neighbor and meets a reluctant thug named Elvis who’s also trying to find her. There’s violence, a little sex, loads of naughty words, and a lot of intrigue. As Maite's and Elvis' lives meld into one noir narrative bubbling with intrigue, Velvet Was the Night embarks on a simmering adventure.

The author playlist was great at the end as these are songs I grew up on that have been remade over and over so much you never know who It's the 1970's in Mexico City and Maite starts and ends her day, every day, in the same robotic manner. She works as a secretary in a law firm where the majority of the time she is running errands for the top lawyers or shuffling papers across her desk. Maite circles the Help Wanted Ads in the hope that something will prompt her to better her mundane life manipulated by her mother and overbearing sister.Plus, how about that cover. Both of the books I have read by her have the most beautiful and intriguing covers! An absolute flex . . . [ Velvet Was the Night] left memarvelingat what kind of sorceress Moreno-Garcia must be as she reworks genre after genre, weaving in Mexican history and culture, satisfying familiar cravings without resorting to mere pastiche. The most tantalizing suspense of all comes withwondering what she’ll do next.” — Slate Leonora is a beauty, a free-spirit, a student, an artist. She lives across the hall from Maite. Although the two have never really socialized, Leonora comes to Maite one day for a favor and then disappears.