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bookswithlee 's review for:
Bindle Punk Bruja
by Desideria Mesa
2.5 rounded up
It’s always hard when a book you’re looking forward to doesn’t deliver in the way that you hoped it would.
On paper Bindle Punk Bruja is a book I should love. It’s set in the 1920 with flappers, mobsters, corrupt councilman, and a strong female lead who will take nothing from nobody. On top of that, you add the magical element that she comes from a family who is descended from witches, and with that I’m drawn in. However, that just wasn’t enough for me with this story, and here’s why.
First, lets start with the positives I loved that the main female character was latine. I thought the book did a good job of highlighting her cultural heritage and setting the back drop of the 1920s. I felt like I was transported back in time while reading this book.
Now let’s talk about what I didn’t like and why this book was ultimately somewhat of a let down:
First- like with many fantasy stories there was some information dumping at the beginning, which I anticipated; however, the way the characters were introduced and described made it hard to discern who was who as the story moved on. Not only that the main character often just referred to characters by their relations to her (ie brother, fiancé) and rarely used their name, which made keeping up with characters difficult when names were later used in other context.
Second- I found the pacing to just be off. It started off pretty quick with the introduction of characters, but then slowed down and it didn’t really pick up until over halfway through the book. However, by that time I wasn’t as Invested into the story as I was more focused on trying to remember which characters was which.
Lastly- the magic system wasn’t really fully explained. I understood some, but not enough so the fantasy element fell flat for me.
Because of the above, I lost interest and I couldn’t find a way to reengage with the story
Overall, I think the idea was a great, but the execution was poor in some area and done well in others
Thank you libro.fm for the audio ARC and Harper Collins for the physical ARC of this book
It’s always hard when a book you’re looking forward to doesn’t deliver in the way that you hoped it would.
On paper Bindle Punk Bruja is a book I should love. It’s set in the 1920 with flappers, mobsters, corrupt councilman, and a strong female lead who will take nothing from nobody. On top of that, you add the magical element that she comes from a family who is descended from witches, and with that I’m drawn in. However, that just wasn’t enough for me with this story, and here’s why.
First, lets start with the positives I loved that the main female character was latine. I thought the book did a good job of highlighting her cultural heritage and setting the back drop of the 1920s. I felt like I was transported back in time while reading this book.
Now let’s talk about what I didn’t like and why this book was ultimately somewhat of a let down:
First- like with many fantasy stories there was some information dumping at the beginning, which I anticipated; however, the way the characters were introduced and described made it hard to discern who was who as the story moved on. Not only that the main character often just referred to characters by their relations to her (ie brother, fiancé) and rarely used their name, which made keeping up with characters difficult when names were later used in other context.
Second- I found the pacing to just be off. It started off pretty quick with the introduction of characters, but then slowed down and it didn’t really pick up until over halfway through the book. However, by that time I wasn’t as Invested into the story as I was more focused on trying to remember which characters was which.
Lastly- the magic system wasn’t really fully explained. I understood some, but not enough so the fantasy element fell flat for me.
Because of the above, I lost interest and I couldn’t find a way to reengage with the story
Overall, I think the idea was a great, but the execution was poor in some area and done well in others
Thank you libro.fm for the audio ARC and Harper Collins for the physical ARC of this book