Reviews tagging 'Child abuse'

Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia

196 reviews

dark mysterious tense slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven: Plot
Strong character development: Yes
Loveable characters: Yes

Good book, with an interesting premise and a great FMC but 1) the plot progresses really slowly at first 2) the 🍇 references and scenes were too much for me. 

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adventurous challenging dark mysterious sad tense fast-paced
Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Loved this novel!  It’s creepy and challenging and deliciously frightening!  The writing is excellent, and I loved the main character.  She was complex and imperfect but so brave.  I won’t be eating mushrooms for a while, though.  Definitely worth reading!  5 stars

Historical horror featuring Mexican main characters set in Mexico

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adventurous dark mysterious tense slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven: Plot
Strong character development: Yes
Loveable characters: Yes
Diverse cast of characters: Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus: Complicated

I really enjoyed the atmosphere in the book. The house in question was very oppressive, and the eerie things very disconcerting, I found. I also enjoyed the whole colonialism aspect that underlies the story. The foreshadowing was well done; if one were to consider the culprit in that particular direction, it would be quite obvious from the start. I didn't, so I had my "aha!" moment.

See, the unseen horrors can usually be one of two: natural phenomena, often orchestrated by a very human villain, or supernatural entities of some sort. I think my gripe with the book is that it went in one direction when I would have preferred the other, which is obviously a me problem. I also found the solution - once we knew what we were dealing with - very obvious, but it took the characters a whole two chapters to figure it out. 

The pacing was a bit odd; it durdles in the middle, when the setup could probably have been swifter, only to rush through to the end. I can say that I did find the resolution very satisfying, especially since the characters finally did what I had been telling them to do for some 70 pages or so. 

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dark mysterious tense fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven: A mix

This book is downright cinematic. The descriptions of the settings, the actions, the people were so visceral that I marveled and gagged (literally). It was a little slow in the beginning as it built tension and a sense of unease. But when it got going, it went at full speed. And yet it still didn’t feel rushed. There was so much to reveal, but I never felt like exposition was being vomited at me. The characters are engaging, the plot had me at the edge of my seat. 10/10.

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adventurous challenging dark emotional informative mysterious reflective sad 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: Complicated

stunning and chilling bundled into an unforgettable read. perfect way to end halloween night <3

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Loveable characters: No
Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

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

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

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challenging dark tense medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven: Plot
Strong character development: Complicated
Loveable characters: No
Diverse cast of characters: No
Flaws of characters a main focus: Complicated

Very well written and creepy in the right way. I usually avoid horror or horror-adjacent books, but I was hooked. 

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adventurous dark emotional mysterious tense medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven: Plot
Strong character development: No
Loveable characters: Complicated
Diverse cast of characters: Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus: No

What a reprehensible little family. Noemi Toboada <3 i luv u <3 I wish you'd never met them.

Very interesting concept, surprisingly thoughtfully feminist and intersectional. Underneath the
mind-controlling, life-extending, consciousness-transferring mushrooms
is a story about the use and abuse of female, non-white, and poor bodies at the hands of a colonial power and men who never hear or internalize the word "no." Is it ground-breaking or particularly deep? No. But I was glad that
the people who mattered (Catalina and Noemi) made it out alive and triumphant and that Agnes was freed. I also appreciated that, at the end of the day, Catalina and Noemi saved themselves/each other, instead of being saved by a man.


Also, learned a new word: lugubrious = adj. looking or sounding sad and dismal. It played in my head on a loop for three days after I read it. Very fun word to say, one might even say too fun to mean "sad".

Weakest part of the book for me was the romance between Francis and Noemi
, wish they just ended as friends. Though I guess the novel itself tells us that we never know what the future has in store for them, so they may very well breakup
.

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