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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
readingwithcoffee's review against another edition
dark
emotional
informative
sad
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
Incredible and concise prose about the surreal and haunting nature of what the worst of humanity can be under authoritarian that Fernandez excellently uses various pop culture such as the titular reference to the twilight zone, Edgar Allan Poe, Frankenstein, and more including videogames and pop music for springboards and analogies.
I do want ti give a heads up while I do not believe the book was ever condoning racism to Romani in Chile, it is present in the book and I think the wha it’s depicted by a more passive narrator who exists more as witness to her country then active may bother others, I did prefer his Fernandez wrote about the Mapuche.
I am familiar with this part of Chilean history but I don’t know everyone’s names so I am curious if every named character was a real person because it definitely was deliberate who is a named character and who is not. Something to check out on a reread.
I do want ti give a heads up while I do not believe the book was ever condoning racism to Romani in Chile, it is present in the book and I think the wha it’s depicted by a more passive narrator who exists more as witness to her country then active may bother others, I did prefer his Fernandez wrote about the Mapuche.
I am familiar with this part of Chilean history but I don’t know everyone’s names so I am curious if every named character was a real person because it definitely was deliberate who is a named character and who is not. Something to check out on a reread.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Racial slurs, Suicidal thoughts, Stalking, Violence, War, Sexual harassment, Torture, Colonisation, Sexism, Death, Physical abuse, Murder, Mass/school shootings, Gun violence, Grief, and Fire/Fire injury
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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