An amazing book

I finished a great book this morning--The People of Paper by Salvador Plascencia. I'd seen some brief discussion of the book a few years ago and was intrigued, but it took me until now to got my hands on a copy and read it.

Here's the blurb, which sums it up nicely:

After his wife leaves him, Federico de la Fe and his daughter Little Merced depart the town of Las Tortugas, Mexico and head for Los Angeles. There, with the aid of a local street gang and the prophetic powers of a baby Nostradamus, they engage in an epic battle to find a cure for sadness. Mechanical tortoises, disillusioned saints hiding in wrestling rings, a woman made of paper, and Rita Hayworth are a few of the players whose destinies intertwine in this story of war and lost love. The People of Paper is simultaneously a father-daughter immigration story, a wildly inventive reimagining of Southern Californian mythology, and an exploration of the limits of fiction. Part memoir, part lies, this is a book about the wounds inflicted by first love and sharp objects.

It's incredibly inventive and playful in the way it tells the story. Magical realism, metafictional...whatever you want to call it, it's very fun. I don't feel up for doing an actual review of it, but I can certainly recommend it.