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rmperezpadilla's review
challenging
dark
emotional
reflective
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? N/A
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.75
Very heavy book, as should be obvious from the description. An unflinching collection of memories, documents, and imaginings of torture and disappearances during the Pinochet regime, how those horrors became quotidian, and how we think of them now, all understood through the frame of the twilight zone, a place of dreamlike unreality-based-in-reality.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death, Injury/Injury detail, Kidnapping, Murder, Panic attacks/disorders, Confinement, Emotional abuse, Police brutality, Blood, Mental illness, Physical abuse, Torture, Gun violence, and Genocide
Minor: Suicide
sasuke's review
challenging
dark
emotional
reflective
sad
tense
medium-paced
5.0
Writing that escapes a clear genre; a blend of poetry and poetic prose, fiction and creative nonfiction that beautifully describes such a dark period of history and all the cruelty and horror human beings are compelled to commit against one another. This book took over my mind a bit, like it was haunting me, to the point I couldn’t put it down. The allusions to American/Western media are both thematically and historically relevant, and felt to me like specters of the American-born neoliberalism that took over Chile from that time, giving a sense of both political and economic reality. Also a wonderful coincidence that the book’s ending features an allusion to Frankenstein which I’m reading next.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Confinement, Death, Kidnapping, Murder, Physical abuse, Police brutality, Torture, and Violence
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