christopherlucas 's review for:

Our Share of Night by Mariana Enríquez
3.0

A bewitching story told at a grueling pace. This mammoth tome holds remarkable images and compelling narrative elements — a vicious cycle of dark secrets passed down through generations — but it’s bogged down by a bewildering amount of domestic padding and circular detours. To my great disappointment, even its most haunted and thrilling moments are dulled through repetition until events bleed together. Another ritual; another argument; another hookup. So many secrets are withheld between characters but not from the reader, leaving you with all the stubbornness and none of the suspense.

I desperately want to love this more than I do. There is an evocative family saga here, something beholden to a dark force with a cruel hunger, but the structure is so lengthy and uneven that I started to resent the book after 400 pages. My satisfaction comes not from the rushed and flimsy conclusion, but from the relief that I can start something new tomorrow.