A review by jankatar
Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia

dark mysterious tense slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.5

It's a bit difficult to give a verdict on this one, there's some things I really liked and others that I really disliked. The book was gripping and creepy in the best way, it's a horror book but it's mainly the atmosphere, creepy characters and feeling that something's very wrong that make it horror, not gore or jump scares or whatever. The writing style is different from what I'm used to, a bit showy and rambly but that somehow really really works for the scary bits. 

The story itself was slow but good. Definitely more vibes than plot. There's a few bits of exposition in the form of other characters explaining things to the main character which I didn't mind, but around 2/3 suddenly all of the lore is explained to her and that took the magic out of it for me. Fortunately, after that, the story continued very strongly, so I didn't mind as much in hindsight, just think it could have been executed better.

I liked the main character and her interactions with everyone else, but the romance was completely unnecessary and would have been better as a strong friendship.

Trigger warning for sexual assault and victim blaming 
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