dark mysterious tense medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven: A mix
Strong character development: Yes
Loveable characters: Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

Expand filter menu Content Warnings
challenging dark emotional mysterious tense fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven: A mix
Strong character development: Yes
Loveable characters: Complicated
Diverse cast of characters: Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus: Complicated

Expand filter menu Content Warnings
dark emotional mysterious sad tense slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven: A mix
Strong character development: Yes
Loveable characters: Complicated
Diverse cast of characters: Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

Expand filter menu Content Warnings
adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious sad medium-paced

Brutal, brilliant. I want to try and gather my thoughts to give this one the review it deserves but we’ll see

Expand filter menu Content Warnings
challenging dark mysterious sad medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven: A mix
Strong character development: Yes
Loveable characters: Complicated
Diverse cast of characters: Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

Our Share of Night is an inimitable masterpiece, a stunning work of literary horror.  Enríquez’s storytelling is breathtaking and immersive, with gritty, tightly-woven character relationships which evolve over decades.  At the novel’s center is a pagan cult like that of Argentina’s San La Muerte, which here is guided by heart-stopping nightmares and pure horror.  The book is chiefly, however, a heartbreaking story of father and son, colored by political violence, a culture of fear, and ties that bind.  I didn’t want it to end, and I want to read it again, immediately.

Expand filter menu Content Warnings
challenging dark tense slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven: Character
Strong character development: Complicated
Loveable characters: No
Diverse cast of characters: Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for gifting me an advance copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. 

Our Share of Night follows Gaspar, along with some family members including his father Juan. Juan is a medium used by the Order, a cult-like group who communicate with the ever-hungry Darkness in an attempt to gain immortality. The story opens with Juan fleeing the Order with Gaspar, following the death of his wife, worried that Gaspar has inherited his abilities and therefore destined to a life of suffering at the hands of the Order, who he also suspects of orchestrating his wife's death. 

I'll be honest, I've struggled to rate this one but have settled at 3.5 stars, rounding up to 4 for Netgalley. Is it a good book? Absolutely yes. Did I enjoy it? Uhh... Sometimes.

If you pick this up, you're in for a long, atmospheric ride. If you like a slow-burn horror with brutality, creepiness and tension interspersed with exposition, politics (this is set against the backdrop of the Argentina of the 70's-90's), trauma and sacrifice, then this is for you. It's beautifully written (and translated - kudos to the translator), with descriptive prose that was borderline TOO descriptive at times. 

As another reviewer has pointed out, a lot of the horror is front-loaded into the first half, meaning that by the time we reach its crescendo towards the end, it feels repetitive as we have already seen most of the horrific violence the Order is capable of. At around the 60% mark it decides to turn into a sociopolitical book for 200 pages, which is well-done in and of itself but interrupted the flow of the book. At the same time we are left with a sudden ending with some unanswered questions.


Overall this definitely will have its niche of readers who will love it, and I can truly see its potential, but for me it was just a bit too long with both too much and too little going on, and it ended up being a bit of a slog to get through. 

Expand filter menu Content Warnings
adventurous challenging dark tense medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven: Character
Strong character development: Complicated
Loveable characters: No
Diverse cast of characters: Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus: No

Thank you very much to Netgalley and Granta Publications for providing me with an e-arc of this book.

"Spanning the brutal decades of Argentina's military dictatorship and its aftermath, Our Share of Night is a haunting, thrilling novel of broken families, cursed inheritances, and the sacrifices a father will make to help his son escape his destiny."
 
This is how the book is described, and for the most part I agree with the statement! But, I would also like to add that this book is cleverly executed, it's full of horrifying demons and sinister ghosts, merciless cults and hidden secrets. Shall we move to my complaining? 
I will not comment on the disability rep since it's not my place to judge that, and WE  should definitely read reviews from disabled reviewers on that topic. 
 I felt the usage and presence of queer people is mostly sexual and I'm honestly offended by it. I felt queer people were dehumanized in a way. As much as sex with and between queer people was normalized I think we should be allowed to exist outside and beyond it. We are more than our sexual partners.
 
I would say that "sexchange" surgery is an inappropriate word and its usage is hurtful towards the trans community, so I would advise you to connect with and contact trans people about the correct and appropriate terminology. 
 
The CONSTANT f slur usually directed at homosexual/erotic people. I get it, this is how we were treated, this was most common name for us and all that but half of it felt totally unnecessary.
 S
ome commentaries left me wondering about their purpose and intentions and found them problematic.

 Now, a few observations about the characters.
 Gaspar not feeling akward  or "disgusted" by gay people is nothing. It doesn't make him a descent being. It just doesn't make him an ignorant bigot.
 I found a lot of them problematic, none of them lovable, although I think that was intentional. They were...real. In a terrifying and masterful way, real. 

Now, to the good parts. It is very very clear that the writer of this book is talented. The story she has crafted is deliciously haunting and masterfully horrifying.
 The atmosphere is honestly astounding, the writing even more so. Excellence.
The horror? Incredible.
The plot? Unique, and surprise surprise, excellent.
Am I having nightmares because of this book? Absolutely.
Do I still see Moira in my sleep? You bet I am.
 I will be thinking about this book for a long long time. 

Expand filter menu Content Warnings
adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective sad medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven: A mix
Strong character development: Yes
Loveable characters: Complicated
Diverse cast of characters: Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

A masterpiece. Mariana Enríquez knows how to write a compelling and mysterious story you won't forget too fast.
Either you love it or you hate it, there is no in between.

Review in German:
Poetischer Horrorroman

"Unser Teil der Nacht" spielt zwischen 1960 und 1997 in Argentinien und London. Das Buch wird nicht chronologisch erzählt, sondern das Leben der Charaktere wird in verschiedenen Phasen ihres Lebens während einer sehr dunklen Zeit in Argentinien beschrieben. Obwohl dieses Buch einige sehr wichtige und dunkle politische Momente in der argentinischen Geschichte erwähnt, ist dies jedoch nicht Kern des Romans.
Im Mittelpunkt der Geschichte stehen hierbei Juan und seinen Sohn Gaspar, denen man als Leser*in von klein auf bis ins Erwachsenenalter hindurch begleitet. Juan ist ein Medium, das für eine Sekte, den Orden, arbeiten muss. Der Orden betete die Dunkelheit an und hat sich zum Ziel gesetzt, Unsterblichkeit zu erlangen. Um sein Ziel zu erreichen, schreckt der Orden nicht vor grausamen und blutigen Ritualen zurück und geht wortwörtlich über Leichen. Gaspar soll wie Juan auch ein Medium werden, doch Juan will ihn vor den Fängen des Ordens schützen und versucht dessen Pläne zu durchkreuzen. Juan will sicherzustellen, dass Gaspar nicht dasselbe Leben als Medium des Ordens erleiden muss, wie es bei ihm der Fall war.

Kurz ein Roman über 40 Jahre argentinische Geschichte, Freundschaft, Liebe, die Dunkelheit, menschliches und übersinnliches Grauen und Geheimgesellschaften.
Ebenso enthält es einen Mix aus europäischen okkultistischen Elementen wie Riten, Salz, Blut und Pentagramme und lokalen Elementen wie der Figur von „San la Muerte“ und „Huesito“, was es zusätzlich interessant zum Lesen macht, auch wenn die Beschreibungen teils sehr grafisch und grausam sind.

Ich habe mich in die Charaktere und die Geschichte verliebt, beim Lesen hatte ich den Wunsch, das Buch würde niemals enden. Ich fieberte, ich litt und fühlte mit Juan und Gaspar, so real sind sie beschrieben. Beide Charaktere sind perfekt gezeichnet, sie sind komplex, nicht ohne Fehler und Makel und teilweise auch ziemlich brutal, aber auch voll von Liebe, wie Menschen im echten Leben eben so sind.

Wer auf der Suche nach einer wunderschön erzählten und fesselnden Geschichte mit faszinierenden Charakteren ist sowie Elementen des magischen Realismus und Horrorgeschichten nicht abgeneigt ist, dem kann ich "Unser Teil der Nacht" vom ganzen Herzen empfehlen.

Expand filter menu Content Warnings
adventurous challenging dark mysterious sad tense slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven: Character
Strong character development: Yes
Loveable characters: No
Diverse cast of characters: Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

Expand filter menu Content Warnings
adventurous dark mysterious reflective tense medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven: A mix
Strong character development: Yes
Loveable characters: Yes
Diverse cast of characters: Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

Expand filter menu Content Warnings