Read Women discussion

This month for our Read Around the World selection, we are reading and discussing Signal to Noise, the debut novel of Canadian-Mexican author, Silvia Moreno-Garcia. Since its publication, Moreno-Garcia has authored several novels, including Mexican Gothic and The Beautiful Ones, and edited several anthologies.

Signal to Noise

In this dual-timeline novel -- Mexico City in 1988 and in 2009 -- Mercedes "Meche" Vega is our protagonist. In the earlier timeframe, she's a 15-year-old somewhat troubled girl who has discovered how to practice magic, using music. In the later sequences, she's a 36 year-old software developer living in Oslo, returning home to bury a loved one.

Silvia Moreno-Garcia

Moreno-Garcia was born in Baja California, Mexico in 1981 and relocated to Vancouver, Canada in 2004. She has written a ton of short stories and essays, edited collections, magazine articles. This publications list is awe-inspiring.

http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/ea.cgi?1...

Her own website, which has a wealth of interesting content.
https://silviamoreno-garcia.com/

ABA 2020 Q&A:
https://www.bookweb.org/news/qa-silvi...

2016 SFSignal Interview (transcript)(there may be spoilers): http://www.sfsignal.com/archives/2015...

Ines will lead our discussion.

Thank you, Carol! Who is joining us in reading Signal to Noise?

So, what is the difference between magical realism and urban fantasy for you?
And for this novel, do you wish for more magic or more realism?

I've read up to chapter 4 so far and I think the 80s chapters really have a great 80s vibe to them. And I'm already curious what happened to the characters between then and 2009. That's something I think Silvia Moreno-Garcia does exceptionally well - create characters you can get attached to (even though you don't necessarily have to like them als people). How do you like Meche and her friends?

I will definitely be joining in on this one, bit haven't started just yet. For me, magical realism is when strange things or happenings are taken as course, and it has an almost silly or whimsical quality (my guidepost will always be One Hundred Years of Solitude), whereas urban fantasy is set in modern realistic settings, and magic is an extra component.

Up until chapter 5, some thoughts on Meche's grandmother:
(view spoiler)[I thought Meche's grandmother had had experiences with witchcraft in her youth or was a witch herself before the book told us, but I thought her magic was done via her cooking. I didn't expect it to be knitting, because she was always cooking specific food for specific situations and we learned the effect it had on other people. (hide spoiler)]

I'm reading chapter 16 at the moment and I still admire how not neccessarily likable, but believable the charakters are. They are flawed and they do frustrating stuff and are unfair to each other, but they seem so real.

Spoilers for chapter 16:

Content Warning: (view spoiler)[sexual assault of a minor (hide spoiler)]

(view spoiler)[I knew it the moment I first read about Rodriguez! Good for Daniela for kicking him in the nuts. He deserves what's coming. (hide spoiler)]

So, I finished the book and here are my thoughts.

The prose was great, the characters are believable and I enjoyed the story, but it felt just a little ... flat to me. I saw all the major plot points coming and did wish for a surprise several times. But I still liked the experience of reading the book. It felt like that series you watch while eating or doing other things, as opposed to the series you sit on your couch with a glass of wine for, only focusing on your current episode.
But then again, not everything has to be totally deep and subversive and whatnot. This book did what it wanted to do very well.

The ending (view spoiler)[with Meche and Sebastian seemed a bit constructed, maybe because we didn't get as much time to see things develop in the 2009 chapters (hide spoiler)].

This will be a 3- or 4-star read for me. I usually decide while writing the review.

I loved listening to the playlists while reading the book. Silvia Moreno-Garcia has linked three on her homepage, but only two links still work:
her own playlist
and here's a "Meche's playlist" a fan made

Are there other group members reading the book? :D What do you think?