Reviews with content warning for Racism - Gótico

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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mollief's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional mysterious tense medium-paced

5.0

Really enjoyed this one. Was hard to put down.

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bookscatcoffee's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark mysterious sad tense fast-paced

Diverse cast of characters? Yes

5.0

Loved this novel! It’s creepy and challenging and deliciously frightening! The writing is excellent, and I loved the main character. She was complex and imperfect but so brave. I won’t be eating mushrooms for a while, though. Definitely worth reading! 5 stars

Historical horror featuring Mexican main characters set in Mexico

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roomwithbooks'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? N/A
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.5

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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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nahret's review against another edition

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adventurous dark mysterious tense slow-paced

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

3.5

I really enjoyed the atmosphere in the book. The house in question was very oppressive, and the eerie things very disconcerting, I found. I also enjoyed the whole colonialism aspect that underlies the story. The foreshadowing was well done; if one were to consider the culprit in that particular direction, it would be quite obvious from the start. I didn't, so I had my "aha!" moment.

See, the unseen horrors can usually be one of two: natural phenomena, often orchestrated by a very human villain, or supernatural entities of some sort. I think my gripe with the book is that it went in one direction when I would have preferred the other, which is obviously a me problem. I also found the solution - once we knew what we were dealing with - very obvious, but it took the characters a whole two chapters to figure it out.

The pacing was a bit odd; it durdles in the middle, when the setup could probably have been swifter, only to rush through to the end. I can say that I did find the resolution very satisfying, especially since the characters finally did what I had been telling them to do for some 70 pages or so.

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