gabs_loc 's review for:

Monstrilio by Gerardo Sámano Córdova

5.0

challenging dark reflective sad tense fast-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

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Grief can be scary. Or at least personified it is. Monstrilio is the tale of a mother who, in the throes of grief cuts out a piece of lung from her deceased son’s chest. Acting upon some baseless folklore, she “feeds” this piece of lung and watches it grow. Over time it gains sentience, first into a weird carnivorous creature, and eventually gorwing into the Santiago this family once lost. 

Well this was a weird little book on grief, but extremely thought provoking. Monstrilio/M/Santiago is grief given sentience, grief given a life. His mother will forever realize that this creature is not hte son that she lost, but still she cannot accept his innate desire to consume. A monster that only a mother could love. The prose in this is absolutely beautiful and each perspective gave new insight to this story that made me want to pick this up and keep going. M’s perspective was especially good, and tied up the book really nicely. Overall, I thoroughly enjoyed this, even if it was a bit weird. Five stars.