Racism, Discrimination
Mexican main characters, queer side characters
Disclaimer: I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own. Thank you to Netgalley, Blackstone Publishing, and Daniel A. Olivas for this free copy. All quotes in this review are taken from the Advanced Reader Copy and may change in final publication.
If this book wasn’t a glaring social commentary on Trump and his MAGA-filled anti-immigrant, anti-anyone that doesn’t fit his idea of “the right kind of people” rhetoric, I don’t know what is.
You can’t help but see the similarities between what the United States had to endure during his presidency and the contents of this book. The President in Chicano Frankenstein is like Trump on steroids, but with anti-“stitcher” political views rather than anti-immigrant views. Although if you think about it, the way that the reanimated population is treated is eerily similar to immigrants. There’s this chapter towards the end of the book between the current President and her Vice-President and her VP starts formulating a plan of how to “deal” with the reanimated population and it was just… absolutely mindblowing and disgusting. And the crazy thing is, I feel like the VP was purposely saying it like that juts to get some positive feedback from the President because it didn’t even sound like he was into it. I don’t know. I feel like something may have shifted in the VP from when we first hear about him to this moment and I don’t think the President realizes it.
Unfortunately, I don’t have too much to say about this one except that it was interesting. I know when I was listening to the conversations with the President, I just kept shaking my head in disbelief because I was like wow. How can someone be so hateful and disturbing and you know, it’s not like this isn’t as far fetched as we would think since it’s prevalent in society today. I both like and don’t like the fact that the main character is never named, because I want to know who he became once he was reanimated. Who did he identify as and was it important to him or not? I guess it may not have been as important as other elements of his life but I like knowing main characters’ names. I want to say this is the second book I’ve read where the MC is not named throughout the entire book and it always throws me off, but I get the choice to make it that way.
The narrator also did a good job. He gave me this feeling like he really was a reanimated person whenever he was in the POV of the Man, and it was such a creepy and cool feeling.
Sometimes Leelynn Reads 