Silver Nitrate was one of my most anticipated books of the year and it did not disappoint. It was hard to put it down, so I binged it.

We follow Montserrat, a rare woman sound editor, and her friend Tristán, former soap actor turned voice actor, in the '90s Mexico. They're not having a good time when they meet an old and obscure movie director whose horror movies Montserrat loved to watch. His career took a hit after the last horror movie he produced that was never finished nor released, and the movie is considered ✨️cursed ✨️. The old director is lonely and nostalgic for his glory days so he starts to talk about the cursed movie production and its writer--a Nazi German occultist believing himself special.

Montserrat becomes interested in the cursed movie and the occultist very fast, and she starts digging more into his magic systems and past. Things, of course, turn dark and messed up.

I was, just like Montserrat, hooked to the mystery surrounding the cursed movie and the occult. But it's the protagonists that made this book so fun! Montserrat and Tristán are both flawed in an entertaining way to read about, and their dynamic was so funny. I also find Montserrat very relatable, when she says that she scared off a date with Videodrome I had an instant flashback to my college days. 😆 And there was such a tangible melancholy mood with Tristán that it made him very dear to me, even though he can act like an egotistical asshole.

The portrayal of Mexican movie industry and the old horror movies were the cherry on top.