Reviews - The Queen of the Cicadas

304 reviews for:

The Queen of the Cicadas

V. Castro

3.77 AVERAGE

gmrickel's review against another edition

3.5

dark 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: Complicated

Loved this book for the most part, especially the premise and the writing style. There is an ableist scene in the first couple of chapters that I wish didn't exist and could easily be wholly removed from the book with no impact on the story or characters. I felt like the book didn't flow as well towards the end.

mfallon3491's review against another edition

4.0

challenging dark emotional mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Complicated

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: No

words_on_paper_official's review against another edition

4.0

V. Castro has done it again. She wrote another beautiful tale of ancient Aztec folklore and brought it to life in modern times. After reading “Goddess of Filth” she left me craving more and this is definitely what I was wanting and needed. I love the V. Castro writes her characters. She makes them feel as if they were people you knew and doesn’t bore you with useless information about them. She tells you exactly what you need to know when you need to know it and that’s it.

If you liked or in my case loved “Goddess of Filth” I highly recommend this one.

kindallunlimited's review against another edition

3.0

I really liked this story and I can tell this author has a great mind for horror, however I did take issue with a few things in this book:

- I've seen a lot of comments about the amount of sex in this book, it's actually not as much as I assumed reading those comments BUT there's more than one instance where the author describes sexual activity amongst minors. Not really necessary to the story at all and concerning as an inclusion period.
- The author clearly strives for profundity, and sometimes hits her mark, but more often than not the writing feels a little basic.
- This story (in my opinion) should have ended right before Belinda temporarily goes back to Phildelphia (to keep it spoiler free). Everything after the event immediately preceding that feels tacked on as an afterthought. Some aspects of that portion (again, in my opinion) would have been much better included earlier in the story.

That being said, I would still recommend this to horror fans and I will definitely check out another title from V. Castro.

ryuutchi's review against another edition

3.25

challenging dark emotional medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Plot

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: Complicated

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

Content Warnings

breacommelafromage's review against another edition

5.0

challenging dark emotional reflective tense slow-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Complicated

I have been sitting here for a few days now trying to figure out how to review this book and I am no closer to having a coherent review, so instead we get some stream of consciousness gibberish instead.

This book was damn near perfect and absolutely broke me. I am CONSISTENTLY impressed with how Castro can make me feel so many feelings in such a short amount of pages.

I first picked this book up in October, but with my friend passing a book about such profound grief was not the move so I shelved it for a bit. A small part of me wanted to DNF it, and I realize now it’s because I think I always knew how much this book would hurt, but FUCK if it wasn’t the best kind of hurt.

The conversations around womanhood, culture, community and grief were so spot on. Casto is a beautiful writer and she knows when to pack a punch and when to let it lie. She isn’t gratuitous with her blood and gore, but when she uses it, ugh, the descriptions are both beautiful and horrific, making your skin absolutely crawl.

Belinda was in a lot of ways a very unlikable character, and a little too rough around the edges but I saw so much of myself in her… and that ending. My GOD that ending.

The way I just wept.

This book just broke me and I loved it.

trishwils's review against another edition

3.0

Not bad for a guilty pleasure reading of horror ridiculousness, but it did not live up to my expectations. I really wanted to like it! The plot and themes were great, but the writing wasn't, and the characters were not fleshed out enough (there's a pun for you if you read the book).