Bindle Punk Bruja by Desideria Mesa is about a Mexican witch trying to open her own speakeasy during the Roaring Twenties, while providing for her family and coming to terms with her heritage. Luna, or Rose, depending who is asking, is a caucasian-looking daughter of an immigrant Mexican woman. Luna’s mother wants her to pretend to be White so Luna can have the best opportunities life can offer. They’ve both seen how society treats people who are different.
Luna is a descendant of a long line of magical witches which are based off of Mexican folktale. However, she is struggling to control and expand her abilities like her talented grandmother. She wants to rely on her budding powers to make progress in her life, but it doesn’t seem that she is able to control her powers.
Luna is struggling to come to terms with her two different personalities along with handling her magical abilities. During the day, “Rose” is a part time reporter at a newspaper. During the night, “Luna” is a partial owner of a nightclub. Luna wants to own her own jazz nightclub outright, as she is tired of dealing with the crooked politicians and the deadly mobsters who run the underground nightlife. Even though Luna looks like a White woman, her loved ones still get targeted with violence because of the rampant sexism and racism. Luna wants to mitigate these risks by owning her own business with no ties to mobsters.
Utilizing her magical powers of charm, she is able to negotiate with criminals to keep her business running smoothly. As she’s making progress, she finds herself in the crosshair of someone who wants to harm her and her business to a greater degree than her “business partners”. Luna is used to depending on herself but she finds herself overwhelmed. Will she be able to turn to her loved ones for help?
It was engaging seeing how Luna was trying to manage the two different sides of herself and trying to combine her heritage and her new life into one. I liked reading about her dreams of running her own business and how she overcame the people who were trying to stop her.
The book was packed with action on every page but it felt overwhelming at times. There were points though that I had a hard time following along. I felt the Spanish phrases and the terminology used during that time period made it hard to keep up with the pace. I would have liked a glossary or a translation of what something meant.
I also felt at times that the writing was choppy. A scene would transition to another scene without much warning or heads up that the story was moving in another direction. It seemed as if the author wanted to broach many different social issues such as racism and sexism, but she touched the surface and didn’t really go anywhere with it.
I had a hard time connecting with the main character. I felt that the reader got a one dimensional look to her. The author didn’t spend much time giving her a background or explaining her magic in more detail. I felt like the novel lacked proper world building, which was confusing since she used a lot of 1920’s jargon. Luna’s thoughts were so muddled and repetitive that it made it confusing to me. The book had a lot of potential but it needed to be better edited to make the story easier to follow.
