*4,5 stars*

This book is a historical romance with speculative elements and strong Western vibes, while it's very atmospheric and there are vampires, it's not really a scary book. It's a mix of so many different things and it executes them all so well, and the writing as well was fantastic. From the very beginning, I found the characters and their relationship fascinating, I was completely invested, and I loved how the angsty romance was such a big focus of the book. I also appreciated the way this explored class dynamics and imperialism.

As I mentioned, there are literal vampires in the story, and I enjoyed that they were depicted differently than usual, they are much more animalistic which made them feel unique. I have seen a lot of criticism for this book because there weren't enough vampires, but I loved the symbolic way vampires are used in the story, because "Vampires of El Norte" literally means "Vampires of the north", and this takes place during the US invasion of Mexico, so the vampires are a reference to the United State army that came to steal the land and resources and in that process chased, hunted and murdered Mexicans.

Overall, I loved this because it was both incredibly entertaining and at the same time very smart and thought-provoking.