Chicano Frankenstein

Chicano Frankenstein by Daniel A. Olivas reimagines Mary Shelley's work in modern America where reanimation of corpses is an everyday medical possibility for the average young, healthy person, such as the man, a paralegal, whom we follow through his budding relationship with Latina lawyer Faustina Godinez. 
A side effect (maybe a feature, not a bug?) of reanimation is that one retains skills, some knowledge, personality traits, but they have no memory of their former life. One of the conditions of reanimation is that they will have plastic surgery to change their facial features so they will not be recognized by any chance meeting with anyone from their former life, and it is against regulations for them to have any information about who they were.
We are privy to some private meetings and telephone calls from the U.S. President - a woman, just in case you thought corpse reanimation was the most unrealistic part of this novel.  Come on, America, stop voting based on the white maleness of the candidate. Though, to be fair, in this case, it is a woman who is awful, as she has signed legislation that will make reanimating bodies illegal, the first phase of de-humanizing the reanimated (derogatorily called "stitchers" because some of them had to have donated body parts stitched to them). 
It was really interesting to read the various PoVs, as we have "the man" as he is known throughout the book, who seems to be generally unaware of national politics, focusing on his day to day life, his job, his new relationship, his daily run, juxtaposed with the possibility that he will soon not have the right to exist from the political perspective. 
The man's daily life narration is kind of funny and relatable, he's just trying to be good at his job, follow his routine, define his relationship - not that different from any of us. 
I found the character I most related to was the doctor that he ultimately visits as he wants to learn more about his former self, and that is due primarily to this sentence: "The doctor set his cat down on the couch and then removed about a dozen books from the same couch and carefully stacked them in a corner of the room near another stack of books."
Fair warning: You will get hungry reading this book, and the primary improvement I can think of for it is to include some recipes for thing like chilaquiles and pan dulce. 
Read for 100 Horror Movies in 92 Days Book Club in January.