A review by nsmisa7
The Water Rituals by Eva García Sáenz de Urturi

2.0

seldom a book makes me angry enough to write a review, but i guess this is a warning to potential readers: too much drama, and VERYYYY bad misogyny.

i unfortunately picked up this book not really knowing it's part of a trilogy - i was under the impression it was part of a longer series about the same detective (think Poirot , for example) where you could read the books standalone. this is just a preface so that anyone reading this review is aware of that first. i blame the synopsis of the Bulgarian edition for this.

my issues have nothing to do with that - ironically, i had no problems understanding what happened previously, rather my issue comes from the overexplaining. i'm glad in some ways that i had no previous context, because i feel like if i were a return reader, i'd get a little annoyed by all the references to the previous story - it felt a little bit like the author didn't trust the reader to remember Anything. aside the fact i couldn't care less about the characters themselves except the victims, i have to say Ayala is an awful profiler. i guessed a lot of the twists (which in my opinion were actually very good! i loved the mystery!) LONG before he did, and could tell much about the suspects before he did as well. he's not good at what he does, nor did i get an impression he particularly cares about anything but himself.

my main issues with this book are: i hated the personal melodrama, and i DESPISED the writing style. i kept reading because i wanted to know the mystery of the murder, it was really interesting, and very well-laid out. i'd say about 200 pages of the 400 in this translation i read were unnecessary and hollow. i simply couldn't be bothered to care about the main characters' personal drama and story, and i felt it was way too awkward and in your face for no good reason. that, however, could be from the fact that i hadn't read book 1 and the synopsis of the translation i read emphasized the murder a LOT more than the drama, so take that with a grain of salt.

and still, i felt like Kraken didn't care about anything, at all, except his own feelings, his own experiences, what he does or doesn't deserve, or what he feels guilty or not about. he justifies himself constantly, and the narrative excuses him for everything he misses or does wrong.

and oh, the writing. unfortunately, it reads like a cis-heterosexual man trying his best to sound like a film noir. it was uncomfortable. i'm not a child, and i've read my fair share of both erotica AND terrible writing (esp descriptions of women) but this was so bad i honestly just don't want to pick up unfamiliar authors ever again. it was shallow, objectifying, and unnecessary. the descriptions of "curves" and "ample bosoms" (indirectly from the translation i read), or about Ayala's "nether regions" were pretty revolting.
i was also very angry by the fact that the only positive female characters' interaction between each other was ENTIRELY about Kraken, and in scenes where they reference each other it's about him, too. it really felt like the two probably lovely women had nothing else in their lives besides him, and i mean NOTHING. also, the situation with him selling/giving away his girlfriend's (or, whatever they are in the end) pregnancy away without her knowledge or consent was only addressed in one scene and never again in this book. how is he allowed to hold his daughter in the delivery room? and why on earth was Alba found in the EPILOGUE? she felt like an afterthought. i really think her disappearance should have been given more attention.

the dialogue in many places also felt very overexplained and like the characters were all reading from a psychology book. i understand maybe their profession made them more able to understand their own feelings, but none of their actions spoke to this maturity. it felt very much like "look at how MATURE and GOOD WITH EMOTIONS these people are!" with nothing to back it up. it felt really... awkward.

everything felt like quite a severe case of internalized misogyny honestly.

overall, possibly a good read for returnees for this author, but otherwise i wouldn't recommend it - the murder mystery is interesting, but you have to sift through too much garbage to get to the good parts.