Reviews

Blood & Vinyl (Dream of Waking, #1) by Ignacio R. Limón

book_buddy_rob's review against another edition

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5.0

*4.5 Stars

I think this was an awesome ride of a book. I loved the characters, I loved the writing style and the early 2000s setting was perfect for this type of story. I really felt as I said on Twitter that this felt like a mash up of Queer As Folk and True Blood (but with much more enjoyable characters).
I will be doing a full spoiler free review on my channel so stay on the look out but this is why I feel indie authors deserve as much love or even more love than your Cassandra Clare’s or Leigh Bardugo’s cause you find hidden gems whenever you pick up a book by an indie author.

My breakdown rating for Blood & Vinyl

Characters: 8
Plot:8
Writing: 9
Engagement/Pacing: 9
Overall Enjoyment: 9

Total Score 8.6/10

margaretadelle's review

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3.0

I am always looking to add more diverse voices to my review list. And the author and I have been Twitter mutuals for some time. So when he asked if I would want to do a review, I was eager to.

This book is a strange mix. The best way I can think of to describe it is a jigsaw puzzle where every piece is beautiful and unique, but they're put together in an almost haphazard way. If you read the synopsis, you can't really get a feel for the main conflict of the book and that carries through in the plot. There are so many characters, many of them introduced in groups in large paragraphs of description. While the descriptions themselves can be interesting (my personal favorite was when one character's jeans were described as being "holier than the pope") when put together in such large amounts, it makes it difficult to remember any of them well. And in some cases, the descriptions will take over to the extent that there'll be a scene that's more description than plot. Although, if you're a fan of Tolkien, that might be just up your alley.

As for the plot, it goes at a breakneck pace that can sometimes move too fast to remember exactly why the characters are doing the next thing. They'll say something like "we need the thing at this place" and the next they're gearing up for a raid when no one had actually paused to say "okay, this is what we'll do next." It's almost as if the next step in their plan is taken as a given. There are also some scenes that seem so incredibly intriguing and important to the plot, but are relegated to being backstories that are mentioned occasionally. Leyl and MJ's first meeting, for example. From what I can gather, a LOT happened and it would have helped make the book as a whole feel more connected.

Where this book shines is the setting and characters. Those characters that are given enough "screen time" so to speak, to show their personality jump off the page. Leyl, MJ, Ina, and so on all make for compelling people. The relationships that are there, whether romantic, platonic, or familial, are all intriguing. I'm invested in relationship even when I know they're not that healthy.

The setting is also so enjoyable. It delights in being steeped in the mid-2000s. When someone pulled out a razor phone and I was suddenly transported back to middle school. I will admit that the bands that are named went almost universally over my head (aside from like AFI) so that didn't do much to keep me in the setting. But anyone who was a fan of 2000s alternative culture is sure to relive the glory of it all. There are also references to part of latinx culture that would be

I mentioned before that the story came across as a jigsaw with beautiful pieces put together haphazardly. And the pieces are definitely all there. The characters and their relationships between each other are compelling. The setting is evocative. But they're all squished tightly together in a way that makes it harder to see the bigger picture. If you were to take the story and stretch it out it would feel more cohesive and understandable. Space out the descriptions of characters and relationships, give transition scenes so the next step in the plot feels logical, and center it around a central conflict so the synopsis is a description of the whole thing rather than a list of it's parts.

Despite all this, the passion still comes through and I'm happy I read it. :D

montgomerypierce's review

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funny mysterious tense fast-paced

4.0

Vampires, witches, and low-key Eldritch spookery is what you're going to have in store with this book. But more than that, there's a lot in here cherishing found family, grappling with expectations of blood family, casual and validated queerness, how parental transgressions almost always fall onto the shoulders of their children to fix...

But first, let me sum up what's going on because I don't believe that the synopsis does the actual framework of the story justice.

At the core, Blood & Vinyl is the chaotic culmination of a power struggle in Portland, Oregon, between two groups of vampires led by Sasha Aleksandar and Cailean Ainsley, who have invested interest in controlling the area after the disappearance of an infamously dangerous vampire called Neilos--control that extends to wrangling in his natural-born vampire children. Sasha, by all accounts, wishes to do right by his family and Cailean's own loyalties are hard to discern but one thing is certain: they're both determined to get what they want.

Interwoven is the doomed-from-the-start courtship of MJ and Uri, an outcast witch and a member of the aforementioned Aleksandar family, Leyl, a wayward born-vamp with no recollection of his life falling into a powerplay he's got no knowledge of, the grooming of young vampire Varina into a tool for her family to use, vampires that can cause necrosis in their fellow undead, and a whole hell of a lot of early 2000s punk culture goodness.

As the start to a new-adult/adult urban fantasy, Blood & Vinyl was entertaining, funny at times, tense at others, and laid the groundwork for what could be a fascinating world full of vampires who posses their own interesting lore, witches with deep-seated power in life and in death, and spooky things less comprehensible. With a huge cast, there were so many individual stories present in just this first book whether it was following MJ and learning about her falling out with her coven and seeing the intimacy between her and Uri, or getting to see Leyl attempt to experience normal life while not actually knowing what normal is for him--or even reading about Cailean's plans and being able to understand his position while simultaneously wanting to throttle him.

For everything that I adored, there were a few things that I did not, though given my overall enjoyment and interest in the continuation of this story, I feel that I should disclaim they're not things that would prevent me from recommending giving this book a shot. Mainly, I thought there was a lot of plot rushing; the book felt very keen to get from one point to the next and not so keen on allowing certain things to breathe and be developed (particularly if it related to character interactions or development. Occasionally I was forced to ask myself 'how did we get here?') This was not helped by the sheer number of characters and head-hopping that happened in individual chapters where we were given multiple perspectives. The end result was somewhat frenetic overall, which is something that, after reading, I believe has more to do with editing than with the actual writing or intended arcs; there were so many beautiful passages and the overall plot direction, characters, etc., are there in the foundations. A bit more focus and attention to detail and you've got yourself perfection, which is ultimately why I decided this, for me, was a 4 star vs a 3 star read. I like it too much in spite of the structural issues to give Blood & Vinyl anything less.

Overall?

I'm intrigued by the world-building, and I'm left desperately wanting to see how these characters fare especially after reading the epilogue,
which introduces Lir, a sea-dwelling, man-eating fae following the semi-failed attempt at rescuing MJ.
I so wish that this book was longer so we could have really gotten into the meat of what is going on not only between individual characters and groups, but also within this world at large--especially when it comes to learning about how the covens of witches and bevys of vampires work (side note: Blood & Vinyl is the first where I've seen a group of vampires be called bevies, and I really like it.) I also appreciated the casual queerness, and while certain things (transphobia comes to mind) did come up, there was more emphasis put on allowing the queer characters to just be queer and for characters of color to just be characters of color without queerphobia and racism being on every single page, or even a main part of the plot. I'll be interested to see what Limón does in the future.

nonfictionfeminist's review

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I think the ideas of magic and vampires in this book were interesting, but it felt like there were too many characters and too little character development. There also wasn't enough world explanation for me to be able to follow the plot.

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