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laurabethrobinson2816's review against another edition
dark
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.0
The writing is pretty pretentious.
Realizing we still had 20 pages of "white god nipple clitoris age power jawbone" to go after all we'd done in the essay section was excruciating.
The idea isn't bad, it's just incredibly repetitive.
Realizing we still had 20 pages of "white god nipple clitoris age power jawbone" to go after all we'd done in the essay section was excruciating.
The idea isn't bad, it's just incredibly repetitive.
drabname's review against another edition
I'm not taking reading suggestions from Instagram reels anymore!!!!
frank_the_they's review against another edition
dark
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
Beautiful and highly disturbing exploration of adolescence
youngthespian42's review against another edition
2.0
This is a 2.5 rounded down but one of the most conflicted ratings I have ever given: the writing was so lyrical and beautiful. The character were so interesting and this is such a great meditation on the cruelty of teenage girls. The plot structure is really hard to track for me and the actual story is a little lackluster. The creepy pasta stuff feels a little weak. Once this book became about “the white god” and veered from girls truth or daring in extreme ways I feel off it.
antimony's review against another edition
challenging
dark
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
4.0
I struggled a lot with the writing style at points. just like Our Share of Night, it would regularly go on multi-page stretches with no paragraph breaks, leading me to wonder if perhaps this is a perfectly normal literary convention in south america or at least for writers of literary horror there .... but this was really good once I got into it. I especially loved the chapter which was annelise's essay about fear/white horror/cosmic horror..that was really interesting. and I was really intrigued by what was going on with the girls at their meetings in the building and I also really liked the epistolary format. the ending felt so gaping wide open which I wasn't as much of a fan of but ah well.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Toxic friendship and Panic attacks/disorders
Moderate: Death of parent, Animal death, Injury/Injury detail, and Homophobia
futurama1979's review against another edition
5.0
Makes your skin crawl. Is an utter triumph of modern horror to read while it does so. Ojeda takes thrilling elements of modern teenage girlhood - completing dares with friends, creepypastas and urban legends, telling scary stories sat in a circle, discovering sexuality - and crystalizes them into something deeply unnerving. She also takes the familiar relationships, which is perhaps the main focus of the book, to a gripping and disturbing level. A teacher and student are a mother and daughter. Daughters are scared of their mothers. Mothers are scared of their daughters. Two friends call themselves twin sisters, and act out bestial almost-sex. This book twists every somewhat familiar relationship it introduces in a way that is both horrific to think about and impossible to put down.
I found the emphasis on adolescence - both in the exaltation of it and the deep, putrid fear of it - incredibly interesting and well done. The pervasion of the almost hokey creepypasta element served both to add a disturbing reminder of the girls' youth but also a brilliant narrative framing device for the story, especially in the later half. But, then, the way Ojeda addressed the stories of the white age/White God throughout did have that chill: there was something truly horrific about it, be it the story itself or their dangerous, eerie devotion to it.
It captured the feelings of dread and blind fear very well, and the different structures that were used chapter to chapter enforced those feelings. I read the translation and I thought an incredible job was done. The prose was engaging and beautiful to me, and I want to thank the translator (and all translators who bring brilliant work like this to audiences that couldn't have engaged with them otherwise).
If you have a stomach for weird damaging relationships and a blinding focus on youth I'm basically throwing this book at your head and begging you to read it.
I found the emphasis on adolescence - both in the exaltation of it and the deep, putrid fear of it - incredibly interesting and well done. The pervasion of the almost hokey creepypasta element served both to add a disturbing reminder of the girls' youth but also a brilliant narrative framing device for the story, especially in the later half. But, then, the way Ojeda addressed the stories of the white age/White God throughout did have that chill: there was something truly horrific about it, be it the story itself or their dangerous, eerie devotion to it.
It captured the feelings of dread and blind fear very well, and the different structures that were used chapter to chapter enforced those feelings. I read the translation and I thought an incredible job was done. The prose was engaging and beautiful to me, and I want to thank the translator (and all translators who bring brilliant work like this to audiences that couldn't have engaged with them otherwise).
If you have a stomach for weird damaging relationships and a blinding focus on youth I'm basically throwing this book at your head and begging you to read it.