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sallyreads_'s review
4.0
A beautifully written novel of a girl stricken with the grief of losing her mother (and father), where she is left to live through the suffering in a house, Hacienda Espinosa, marked by their most profound passions, as she watches those around her move on with their lives. Soon she awakens something sinister that resides below the floorboards of her colonial house, a demon known as Silas Espinosa who feeds on her suffering, in the most delicate manner as their affection begins to grow so does the evil around them but that doesn't deter them.
“...Those saints that abstained from the pleasures of life, fasted to starvation, mortified their flesh, drank the blood of the wounded—it was only they who saw the eyes of God, it was only through their agony that they were touched by true divinity, enraptured by their own faith.”
“I… I’m not a saint, Silas.”
“That I am,” he answers. “I found God. And I’m looking into her eyes.”
“...Those saints that abstained from the pleasures of life, fasted to starvation, mortified their flesh, drank the blood of the wounded—it was only they who saw the eyes of God, it was only through their agony that they were touched by true divinity, enraptured by their own faith.”
“I… I’m not a saint, Silas.”
“That I am,” he answers. “I found God. And I’m looking into her eyes.”
michael_benavidez's review
5.0
A modern gothic romance set in the Philippines.
Fun fact about my love for gothic stories: for all the love of them, I always felt that the cold, dreary, blue-grey tinted style of the story could get stale. There's something about the missing sweat, the constricting and claustrophobic heat of a summer that's just adds another layer on top of the mysteries and horrors going on.
Solita FUCKING NAILS THIS.
Everyone knows I'm in love with prose, with how one uses style to create the essence they want. Rainn's is an exercise in poetic imagery, giving vivid descriptions that not only show us the actions that Sadie is going through, but also feeling every ounce of emotion that fills her.
There's so much evoking of passions in this book, namely surrounding grief and the way it manifests. Being locked into Sadie's POV creates this attachment, a sense of living in this time stalled loop of simply existing around people that don't seem to get it. Or don't want to. She does such an amazing job of this, between side characters with small parts to the larger supporting cast, that the moments Sadie does allow vulnerability, I felt my heart break.
The romance in this is also something that caught me by surprise. While I don't remember any explicitly spicy scenes, I FEEL like there were. The energy between them is strong, it's evocative, it's something I've not really read before? And maybe that's due to not having read beyond my usual genres, but catching it here, had me enthralled.
The plot moves briskly, never feeling to stall. Even the moments where we linger in the doom and gloom of Sadie's crisis, the words move across the page with such poetic elegance.
I do think it's also important to note that this book broke my reading slump. After having tried three other novels, some mainstream works, even an attempt at reading King, this was the one that made me fall in love with the story so much that I read the first hundred pages in a night.
Fun fact about my love for gothic stories: for all the love of them, I always felt that the cold, dreary, blue-grey tinted style of the story could get stale. There's something about the missing sweat, the constricting and claustrophobic heat of a summer that's just adds another layer on top of the mysteries and horrors going on.
Solita FUCKING NAILS THIS.
Everyone knows I'm in love with prose, with how one uses style to create the essence they want. Rainn's is an exercise in poetic imagery, giving vivid descriptions that not only show us the actions that Sadie is going through, but also feeling every ounce of emotion that fills her.
There's so much evoking of passions in this book, namely surrounding grief and the way it manifests. Being locked into Sadie's POV creates this attachment, a sense of living in this time stalled loop of simply existing around people that don't seem to get it. Or don't want to. She does such an amazing job of this, between side characters with small parts to the larger supporting cast, that the moments Sadie does allow vulnerability, I felt my heart break.
The romance in this is also something that caught me by surprise. While I don't remember any explicitly spicy scenes, I FEEL like there were. The energy between them is strong, it's evocative, it's something I've not really read before? And maybe that's due to not having read beyond my usual genres, but catching it here, had me enthralled.
The plot moves briskly, never feeling to stall. Even the moments where we linger in the doom and gloom of Sadie's crisis, the words move across the page with such poetic elegance.
I do think it's also important to note that this book broke my reading slump. After having tried three other novels, some mainstream works, even an attempt at reading King, this was the one that made me fall in love with the story so much that I read the first hundred pages in a night.
darlingofsalt's review
adventurous
dark
emotional
inspiring
mysterious
reflective
medium-paced
- Strong character development? Yes
5.0
_christinacreads's review
5.0
Actual Rating: 4.5
CW: Suicide
"Do you know what it's like to have a wound cursed to never heal?"
Solita by Vivien Rainn is a Gothic Horror slow-burn romance set in the Palawan Islands of the Philippines with a heavy Hispanic influence from the Spanish colonization in the country.
We follow Sadie who runs her family’s estate, The Hacienda Espinosa all by herself in the wake of the loss of both her parents. In the mansion that she was born in, the land that her parents died, she’s plagued with nightmares that are so bad that not even waking up erases the horrors that she faces. Alone in the house she’s surprised when she hears a rhythmic beating coming from beneath the floorboards inadvertently unearthing a demon, the Hacienda’s very first owner.
This book feels kind of like Interview with a Vampire meets Inception but make it unapologetically Filipino with the barest hint of dark romance and a whole lot of exploration on loneliness and grief.
As a light warning, there is Catholicism in the book. But that I feel that you really cant talk about demons while making it unapologetically Filipino without talking about the role Catholicism has played in our culture and history.
The vibes and imagery throughout the book were extremely vivid and engaging. I’m not too sure if it was that intense for me because I’m Filipino and therefore am familiar with the style of house, the wood that was talked about, the windowpanes of the house. I spent time in houses that very much reminds me of the Hacienda and streets that were very much lit up like those that were illustrated.
It reminds me more of LitFic with how it doesn’t really have a specific formula of how books in other genres tend to go but it more is very character driven and everything that happens impacts our main character and while there was a lot of foreshadowing that the ending did not surprise me, I really had no clue where Rainn was going to go with the character’s motives or where the plot was leading up to other than it was going to be an angst filed journey.
There is no spice, based on the artwork, I honestly thought there would be. But instead, I read a book that was so surprisingly gothic and disquieting and elegantly written. There’s so much yearning for both solitude and companionship, for both life and death, for both suffering and peace. The juxtapositions in this book were immaculate. There are a lot of symbolisms in the text and a lot of metaphors and you can very much tell that a lot of thought went into writing this book.
If you want to read a book that very deeply immerses you into Filipino history culture while giving you everything that you could ever ask for in an eerie gothic novel that is perfect for Halloween, read this book. This does read like a stand-alone but there is a sequel coming out this October 31 called Silencia and I am very, very excited to read the next book.
CW: Suicide
"Do you know what it's like to have a wound cursed to never heal?"
Solita by Vivien Rainn is a Gothic Horror slow-burn romance set in the Palawan Islands of the Philippines with a heavy Hispanic influence from the Spanish colonization in the country.
We follow Sadie who runs her family’s estate, The Hacienda Espinosa all by herself in the wake of the loss of both her parents. In the mansion that she was born in, the land that her parents died, she’s plagued with nightmares that are so bad that not even waking up erases the horrors that she faces. Alone in the house she’s surprised when she hears a rhythmic beating coming from beneath the floorboards inadvertently unearthing a demon, the Hacienda’s very first owner.
This book feels kind of like Interview with a Vampire meets Inception but make it unapologetically Filipino with the barest hint of dark romance and a whole lot of exploration on loneliness and grief.
As a light warning, there is Catholicism in the book. But that I feel that you really cant talk about demons while making it unapologetically Filipino without talking about the role Catholicism has played in our culture and history.
The vibes and imagery throughout the book were extremely vivid and engaging. I’m not too sure if it was that intense for me because I’m Filipino and therefore am familiar with the style of house, the wood that was talked about, the windowpanes of the house. I spent time in houses that very much reminds me of the Hacienda and streets that were very much lit up like those that were illustrated.
It reminds me more of LitFic with how it doesn’t really have a specific formula of how books in other genres tend to go but it more is very character driven and everything that happens impacts our main character and while there was a lot of foreshadowing that the ending did not surprise me, I really had no clue where Rainn was going to go with the character’s motives or where the plot was leading up to other than it was going to be an angst filed journey.
There is no spice, based on the artwork, I honestly thought there would be. But instead, I read a book that was so surprisingly gothic and disquieting and elegantly written. There’s so much yearning for both solitude and companionship, for both life and death, for both suffering and peace. The juxtapositions in this book were immaculate. There are a lot of symbolisms in the text and a lot of metaphors and you can very much tell that a lot of thought went into writing this book.
If you want to read a book that very deeply immerses you into Filipino history culture while giving you everything that you could ever ask for in an eerie gothic novel that is perfect for Halloween, read this book. This does read like a stand-alone but there is a sequel coming out this October 31 called Silencia and I am very, very excited to read the next book.
imani_d12's review
dark
emotional
mysterious
sad
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.5
aralelif's review
dark
emotional
medium-paced
- Strong character development? It's complicated
3.25
Liked the vibez but interactions often fell flat. The mc should have told those stupid people to get tf away from her life way before. Pretty sure next book gonna be better.