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A review by futurama1979
Jawbone by Mónica Ojeda
5.0
Makes your skin crawl. Is an utter triumph of modern horror to read while it does so. Ojeda takes thrilling elements of modern teenage girlhood - completing dares with friends, creepypastas and urban legends, telling scary stories sat in a circle, discovering sexuality - and crystalizes them into something deeply unnerving. She also takes the familiar relationships, which is perhaps the main focus of the book, to a gripping and disturbing level. A teacher and student are a mother and daughter. Daughters are scared of their mothers. Mothers are scared of their daughters. Two friends call themselves twin sisters, and act out bestial almost-sex. This book twists every somewhat familiar relationship it introduces in a way that is both horrific to think about and impossible to put down.
I found the emphasis on adolescence - both in the exaltation of it and the deep, putrid fear of it - incredibly interesting and well done. The pervasion of the almost hokey creepypasta element served both to add a disturbing reminder of the girls' youth but also a brilliant narrative framing device for the story, especially in the later half. But, then, the way Ojeda addressed the stories of the white age/White God throughout did have that chill: there was something truly horrific about it, be it the story itself or their dangerous, eerie devotion to it.
It captured the feelings of dread and blind fear very well, and the different structures that were used chapter to chapter enforced those feelings. I read the translation and I thought an incredible job was done. The prose was engaging and beautiful to me, and I want to thank the translator (and all translators who bring brilliant work like this to audiences that couldn't have engaged with them otherwise).
If you have a stomach for weird damaging relationships and a blinding focus on youth I'm basically throwing this book at your head and begging you to read it.
I found the emphasis on adolescence - both in the exaltation of it and the deep, putrid fear of it - incredibly interesting and well done. The pervasion of the almost hokey creepypasta element served both to add a disturbing reminder of the girls' youth but also a brilliant narrative framing device for the story, especially in the later half. But, then, the way Ojeda addressed the stories of the white age/White God throughout did have that chill: there was something truly horrific about it, be it the story itself or their dangerous, eerie devotion to it.
It captured the feelings of dread and blind fear very well, and the different structures that were used chapter to chapter enforced those feelings. I read the translation and I thought an incredible job was done. The prose was engaging and beautiful to me, and I want to thank the translator (and all translators who bring brilliant work like this to audiences that couldn't have engaged with them otherwise).
If you have a stomach for weird damaging relationships and a blinding focus on youth I'm basically throwing this book at your head and begging you to read it.