A review by thebarandthebookcase
Hurricane Season by Fernanda Melchor

5.0

This novel will stay with me forever. Through unflinching, expertly crafted prose, Melchor holds the reader’s attention with a vice-like grip, leaving one unable to look away despite the cruelty present on nearly every page. This is a relentlessly brutal yet sharply focused story centered around the murder of a woman known as The Witch in an impoverished small town in Mexico. The majority of the novel is split into four sections, each a single paragraph (it works, trust me), following a different character who has some relationship to the murder and their own stories to tell. Each section feels like a novella, rich in characterization and covering a breadth of tough themes, including violence, misogyny, homophobia, pedophilia, corruption, and addiction. This is an incredibly heavy book, yet critically so. It’s not enjoyable, but it’s a near-perfect piece of fiction that feels alive and is utterly unforgettable. A true modern classic.