Reviews tagging 'Vomit'

Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia

271 reviews

ineedrhythm's review against another edition

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adventurous dark mysterious tense medium-paced
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes

4.0

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sara_starr's review against another edition

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dark mysterious 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? It's complicated

4.25

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theliteraryhooker's review against another edition

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challenging dark mysterious 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

I cannot believe it's taken me this long to read Silvia Moreno-Garcia! I've been missing out! I absolutely tore through this book. The atmosphere, the mystery, the lush writing style, it all clicked immediately for me and I couldn't put this story down. The characters are interesting and well developed, the story is tense and creepy, and ooooh that tonal shift partway through could have totally put me off in another author's hands but SMG pulled it off beautifully! 
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mood_reading_maya's review against another edition

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mysterious tense slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes

4.0

I am not an avid horror reader. Dark romance, sure; but horror? I'm a scaredy cat. However, this straddled the line sufficiently with historical fiction (set in 1950s Mexico) that I had to read it.

Silvia Moreno-Garcia is so adept at slow build plot and character tensions and visceral and atmospheric world-building. In a way, she can perfectly convey that sense of something is not right here. I was thoroughly creeped out by this! The further I got into the book, the clearer the underlying questions became.
  • What shrouds prohibit us from seeing the truth?
  • Who gets to decide what lives are valued and remembered, disposed and forgotten?
  • How are women framed as "hysterical," "demanding," or "problematic"? And what methods are used to subjugate their perceived misbehaviors?
The use of mold, fungi, mushrooms (all forms of mycorrhizal networks) to show the interconnected nature of systems of harm as well as their pervasiveness.
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forest_at_the_sea's review against another edition

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Bis zur Hälfte wirklich spannend und interessant geschrieben. Danach einfach unnötig sexualisiert und unlogisch. 
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ghostsversion's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional funny hopeful sad tense medium-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

5.0

What a wonderful book to start the new year with. Not only did this book make me appreciate Gothic novels a tad more, the inclusion of fungi horror was something I didn’t realise I was craving for. And how gross and disgusting it was. But I do love
women killing bitches.
I also like it in a way that
there is still uncertainty on whether the gloom is really gone, leaving it to the beliefs of the reader. I personally like to think they did it, if only for my own peace of mind.
I also find it funny how I misconstrued the Doyles‘ plan before the reveal, as I thought
they were merely planning to slowly kill Catalina and have Virgil marry Noemí for whatever reason. I was kind of right I guess but still.
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desiderium_incarnate's review against another edition

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dark mysterious tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.0

What a weird(?) little story. This is absolutely a book for fall, where all the leaves are dying and you're sitting inside reading dark mystery novels, eating mushroom risotto. "Welcome to the Church of the Holy Incestuous Mycelium" (or something along those lines) 

Personally, I've had issues with the more historical genre so this wasn't off to a great start with me. The dark ambiance and the masterium that doesn't get revealed at all until you're in over your head was well crafted, but it just didn't get me, so I'm sorry about that. Gods of jade and shadow, which I've already read  before just felt so much more vibrant (and of course, everything here is foggy and gloomy and muted). Anyways, interesting work ; you kind of leave this story with a still uncertain feeling. 
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leanneymu's review against another edition

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adventurous dark mysterious medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.0

A wild ride of a novel, which requires a large amount of suspension of disbelief - especially when the narrative sweves in the last 100 pages. The story is compelling, but the characters are quite rudimentary, and they do a lot of spelling out their plans and feelings, which I found a bit jarring, but that works, once you get use to the writing style. I enjoyed reading it, but I wouldn't read it again, if that makes sense? 
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tkhz's review against another edition

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dark mysterious tense slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

2.0

I enjoy horror and have liked gothic literature, but this book wasn't for me.

The beginning of the book was intriguing and I enjoyed the atmosphere being created, but it began to drag about halfway through. I was becoming frustrated with
Noemi's spinelessness despite being characterized as a strong female lead, and how she tried but never really tried to help Catalina escape. I thought it would end up going a different way.
I also felt some Get Out vibes when the Doyles would talk about genetics and ancestry, but the reveal of their reasoning for being interested in this topic was more odd and stomach-churning than anything else.
The ancestral memory scenes and scenes with Howard made me feel physically ill.


I would also not recommend this to anyone who is not comfortable with reading scenes of sexual assault. It was listed as a moderate content warning but the topic is brought up relatively frequently and is described graphically a few times. I did not expect it to play such a large role in the plot. I would also add that body horror is described very vividly.

Overall, I wanted to like this as it seemed up my alley, but the plot and characters really fell short.
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kaaaara's review against another edition

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

4.0

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