A review by chichio
Nefando by Mónica Ojeda

challenging dark tense fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

To narrate our horrors, what’s the point of science if not to narrate our horrors? El Cuco thought, What’s the point of technology if not to narrate our horrors? What’s the point of languages, screams, keyboards, wells if not to narrate our horrors? 
 
I read this in one sitting. One whole sitting, sat here on my bed, reading this cover to cover, thoroughly disturbed and uncomfortable throughout all of it, yet this is easily a five star read. On a line to line level, on a whole novel formatting level, on a character-voice level, I thought this book was masterfully written. The topics covered in this book are wholly indigestible and the author doesn’t even attempt to make them easy to get down—the prose is crude, vulgar and unflinching. 
 
At its core, under all that vulgarity, this book is about language. How do you put language to your own suffering, your own trauma? Do you write it, code it, draw it, or do you simply sit down and talk it out? Even then, even once you’ve found your outlet, will that language ever fully be able to translate that pain? Will the reader, player, voyeur, or listener ever truly be able to understand what it is you’re saying? Does that even matter? Or, is putting language to your suffering less about others and more about yourself, more about getting that suffering out of you in order to better cope? 

And where do you find/learn this language, these words that you use to explain your experience? What and who do you learn it from? Your parents—even when they refuse to name your trauma? Your teachers—even when they, too, are restricted by their syllabus? Literature, movies or art—even when you’re too poor to afford books, DVDs or art show visits? Or, do you go to the internet, where language and art is uncensored, where piracy allows the free flow of information, of language, where your search for the right words draws you deeper and deeper still? 
 
The creation of your “I” began with violence, and there wasn’t anything beautiful about the process, or maybe there was, but how would they ever understand it? How would they ever understand you if they couldn’t even pronounce you? 
 
I once told Irene that what that man had done to them was a monstrosity, and she looked at me like I was a child. ‘He’s a man, not a monster,’ she said, and I understood what she was saying so clearly that I never brought it up again. Do you get what she was trying to tell me? Well, tío, that they weren’t victims of a monstrosity, but of a humanity. 
 
This book is a lot; the author goes places that I wouldn’t even be willing to go with a gun. Not only does she touch on online voyeurism, religious trauma and gender dysmorphia, but she refuses to shy away from topics of child abuse (in all of its forms), pornography (what it can do for you, what it can do to you), all while interrogating what society views as  “proper victimhood.” I really don’t think this book is for everyone. Hell, I don’t think I’ll ever recommend this to anyone, but I would be lying if I said I didn’t immediately finish this book and say, “finally… finally a book that will sit with me past the last page.” 
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