A review by jckmd
Hurricane Season by Fernanda Melchor

challenging dark tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

Even though back cover comparisons have a tendency to be less than apt, the mention of 2666 is completely warranted; Melchor's magnetic, ranting prose is somewhere between the bleak litany of "The Part About the Crimes," the fourth and longest book of Bolaño's opus, and Marquez's Autumn of the Patriarch (yes, I'm fully aware I need to read wayyy more Latinx women's lit). This is a filthy, stinking, sweaty, shit-stained putrescence of a book, an unrelentingly abrasive worming toward the repulsive rock bottom of humanity. I had to put it down more than a few times. Another literary kinship can be found in Hawkes' The Lime Twig in that a single simple crime permeates the reader's mind and body like a nightmare. Upsetting, disgusting, offensive... any and all adjectives fail. I'm still trying to scrub its residue from my skin.
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