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A review by bennysbooks
Monstrilio by Gerardo Sámano Córdova
Did not finish book. Stopped at 27%.
(Stopped at 90 pages, but skim-read through later sections).
Not for me. The beginning was compelling but it fell flat from there. It all felt a little MFA to me, like someone writing the way they have been taught to write by other people taught to write in this same style (prose polished within an inch of its life, but with enough blood, sex, and heaviness to be realistic, provocative, or raw). NOT that everyone who has an MFA writes this way, but it's an identifiable style that I don't enjoy. It felt like all of the extraneous details meant to flesh the characters out were little more than padding, or flavour added to make things feel grittier/queerer/darker. These things rarely felt like meaningful or valuable additions to the story, which made it harder to connect with anything I was reading. There were moments of insightful writing about grief, and those moments were powerful, but heavily overshadowed. And, probably most egregious for a book listed as "horror", it wasn't remotely scary. Not even a little bit. No building tension, no stress, no dread. Just some gore, really.
I've gleaned from the ratings that when this book connects with people, it connects hard, and I love that! But if you're in the minority on this one, just know you're not alone.
Not for me. The beginning was compelling but it fell flat from there. It all felt a little MFA to me, like someone writing the way they have been taught to write by other people taught to write in this same style (prose polished within an inch of its life, but with enough blood, sex, and heaviness to be realistic, provocative, or raw). NOT that everyone who has an MFA writes this way, but it's an identifiable style that I don't enjoy. It felt like all of the extraneous details meant to flesh the characters out were little more than padding, or flavour added to make things feel grittier/queerer/darker. These things rarely felt like meaningful or valuable additions to the story, which made it harder to connect with anything I was reading. There were moments of insightful writing about grief, and those moments were powerful, but heavily overshadowed. And, probably most egregious for a book listed as "horror", it wasn't remotely scary. Not even a little bit. No building tension, no stress, no dread. Just some gore, really.
I've gleaned from the ratings that when this book connects with people, it connects hard, and I love that! But if you're in the minority on this one, just know you're not alone.