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.