Reviews with content warning for Death - The Hacienda

Reviews tagging 'Death'

rojo25's review

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dark mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

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fifteenthjessica's review

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dark emotional mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

Beatriz is desperate to escape the household of her mother's cousin, where she is forced to work as a scullery maid due to her mestizo heritage, and she thinks marriage to Rodolfo Solorzano, a wealthy hacienda owner in the country, is the key to a life for her and her mother similar to the one they lost when her father was killed in the Mexican Revolution. However, the Hacienda is anything but a refuge. Servants and Rodolfo's sister avoid it at night, no one really knows what happened to Rodolfo's first wife, shadows move on their own, areas of the house are unnaturally cold, and Beatriz is haunted by visions of blood. Beatriz's only hope of rescue is Andres, a mestizo priest with ties to the hacienda and supernatural powers that he's suppressed out of fear of the Inquisition.

It's a horror and historic fiction hybrid, and while I don't read the former much and can't say how well it holds up to others (it's the best of the few I've read), but the historic fiction aspects are excellent. Isabel Canas shows an expertise of the era of history she has set this in, and I think she gets around the issue of delivering exposition about the setting to readers less familiar with life in the era by making its presence related to some of the emotional wounds of her primary characters and really most of the cast. Canas demonstrates an excellent knowledge of how social issues like sexism, racism, colorism, and classism impact people/characters, and I find it hard to completely hate most of the antagonists.

The prose is gorgeous and at times macabre. I (and a few members of the book club I read this for) quickly learned that reading it at night is not a good idea as we were quite jumpy afterwards.

It's not a flawless debut. While the book focuses heavily on the casta class system in Mexico, the few members of the servant class that get development is almost entirely Andres and his family, which I think slightly undercuts the theme. Rodolfo also feels more like a plot device than a character, which I'm not sure how I feel about it. His decision to leave the hacienda in Beatriz and Juana's hands while he rubs elbows with politicians in the capital is necessary for character motivation, it leaves him underdeveloped, and readers are left on their own to reconcile the Rodolfo who his first wife adores and the one who (sexual abuse mention and a spoiler)

rapes serving girls and hides Beatriz's letters from her mother.

There is also something about the ending that left a bad taste in my mouth.

Beatriz's mother inherits a small home from her husband's family and moves into it while Beatriz is surviving her husband's home and invites her to come. Something about the knowledge that if Beatriz waited she'd have a home that she didn't have to fight a malevolent spirit to survive in feels unsatisfactory. Returning to her mother fits with the other theme of home, and I don't know how else to do that in a way that isn't majorly depressing. Plus, Beatriz grows as a person and initiates healing for Andres and his extended family as well as the hacienda itself through her actions, so it's not a total let down.

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itsheyfay's review against another edition

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challenging dark mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated

3.5

Neat premise but it was nothing to sing home about.

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bookishcori's review

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adventurous dark mysterious fast-paced

4.5

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blacksphinx's review

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dark emotional slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

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amberinpieces's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.5

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vaguely_pink's review against another edition

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dark mysterious 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

3.5

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carinakastano's review

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adventurous dark mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.5

it's definitely a book.

overall, this book isn't offensive and it's not bad by any means: either i went into this book with different expectations or the execution could've been better.

CONS:

the author focused way too much on the Romance, and I wasn't expecting that but maybe that's on me if I didn't read the synopsis correctly. Beatriz and Andres are kind of cute but also they basically just trauma bonded and they don't know much about each other so i couldn't root for them and i didn't care about them until the very end

as for the 'horror' part of this book, we kept hearing how bad all these people were but we didn't see any of it until the end. we were told the Solorzanos are so bad but we're not shown much of it, and what we are shown goes by in a flash and it doesn't leave a lasting impression. it is also shown right at the very end, which would've been fine if we were taken along for the ride and didn't know they were bad from literally day 1.

sure some dark stuff happens before our story
Catalina and Mariana's death, and the assaults from Rodolfo
but with the descriptions given by the author, I didn't feel the creepiness or the eeriness of what Beatriz was feeling in the Hacienda and while reading it was hard to feel like she was in any real danger.
if it was all in her head, she was letting the entity in and she had the power to not experience all the hallucinations then what was the point ??? the only thing she had to do was grow a pair ??? some confidence could've solved all our problems, lol ok

how am i supposed to care that she wants to be with her mom at the end over her hunky man if we didn't see that relationship? I have no emotional tie to Beatriz's love for her mom, and sure it kinda made sense, but I just didn't care

there were parts that felt like they dragged on and it would've worked better with 100 less pages

PROS:

the final 1/3 was definitely the best part for me: it was finally fun, we finally saw more of people's dark side, it felt like we were getting somewhere and this is when i started to feel tense and oh my gosh is she going to be okay? I did like Beatriz's friendship with Paloma: honestly that was the best thing about this book for me and I was definitely more scared for Paloma than for our MC

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caseythereader's review against another edition

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challenging dark mysterious sad tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.75

Thanks to PRH Audio for the free copy of this book.

- If you read REBECCA and wished it was about a literal haunting instead of a psychological one, THE HACIENDA is the book for you.
- The audio version of this book is a tense, visceral experience, with narrators Lee Osorio and Victoria Villarreal infusing the words with urgency and painting vivid images of the terrifying scenes at San Isidro.

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