Reviews with content warning for Forced institutionalization - Mexican Gothic

The writing was a whole vibe, gothic and decay. The body horror was disgusting but I wish there was more. The horror was cool but there was too little of it 🥲, thus, the 4 stars.
Noemí is a strong female character and she is consistent with her ideology, love that for her. Every word she said were beautiful. I just loved the way she pissed off the misogynistic walking red flags.
It was definitely a slow read but the ending was worth it.

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sargasso_c's review against another edition

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dark slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.0

Mexican Gothic is the first in what I hope will be a long line of vintage literature resurgence featuring characters of color. Because gothic novels are so slow-paced and the horror is revealed slowly, the characters need to be interesting and/or loveable enough to keep one reading. I believe that Mexican Gothic fell short in this respect. In addition, the little reveals throughout the book did not quite coalesce to into a lens through which the big reveal can be seen. I enjoyed this read, but it did take me quite a while to finish it, as I did not feel a pull to keep reading whenever I had to set the book down.

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berrit's review against another edition

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dark mysterious tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.5

I read this book directly after Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier and it was the perfect book to fix that hangover. Because of that though, I immediately felt the similarities to that story and guessed the ending early on, especially with the foreshadowing every time a flame was mentioned.
Nonetheless, I thought this book did a tremendous job of keeping me on my toes in other ways. I loved that it was creepy, but not overly gory and the author did a good job of confusing me and then letting me figure out what was happening. Plus, the whole premise was very imaginative.

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sarahcherie's review against another edition

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dark mysterious slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

2.5

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katielaine_w's review against another edition

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dark tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

5.0

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grinleysspa's review against another edition

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adventurous dark mysterious medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? Yes

3.5

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hellscape_princess's review against another edition

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adventurous dark mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A

5.0

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v171's review against another edition

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dark mysterious sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

1.0

Man, I don't know. I just didn't like it. Looking at it as a piece of literature outside of genre, the characters were boring and had poor development. The story wasn't very captivating and was poorly paced. The romance felt forced and unnatural. However my primary disappointment was that, as a horror novel, it was appallingly not scary, horrific, or tense. Every beat felt so formulaic and predictable that I never felt the intensity or urgency of the story. I felt bored throughout the whole story, and at the end I felt just ambivalent about the characters as I did in the beginning. I'm no horror connoisseur because I'm pretty easily scared. But this was a miss all around.

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