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A review by gothhotel
Our Share of Night by Mariana Enríquez
3.0
Not as insightful as it wants to be. Most of its successes come from synthesis of and reference to better works - Blake, Borges, Bowie - and from good imagery, and good prose. Good enough that less than 3 stars feels dishonest, as I did keep reading. But it's skin-deep. The well-read wrappings give it a sense of intellectualism, but the actual story is shallow and under-realized, somewhere between a soap opera and angsty fan fiction, plagued by plot holes and random racist asides. There's a really infuriating tendency to code morality with looks, where we're always hearing how the good guys are hot and smart and don't wear makeup while evil Mercedes is bald and looks like an animal. Also, love how indigenous practices of magic are constantly invoked but we don’t get any characters who are even dark skinned til the very end, and that character is abandoned.
The main characters sucked. I love it when characters are assholes, but these particular assholes read like a teenager's diary. Rosario is a blatant self-insert and her perspective felt like reading someone's Pinterest board of 1960s London. And everything about Juan and Gaspar felt so childish and repetitive. No build up, no payoff, no change or even a clear refusal to change, no poetry in the repetition, just... whining? Forever? Occasionally there was an interesting side character - Vicky, Pablo, Betty, Laura – or a moment of narration that felt almost intelligent, like the start of Part 4. But we were always dragged back to the miserably stupid plot driving this thing, which speaks so eloquently about resistance and cycles of abuse but cannot really evoke them in any meaningful way. The ending is not worth spoiling but it is a total dud.
I’d say there’s promise here, but honestly, I walked away feeling like the author had nothing to say. Would not recommend, unless you don’t care about substance and just like gothic vibes, in which case, go right ahead. But comparing this to Bolano or Garcia Marquez is a joke.
(Also, stupid nitpick: At one point she writes "Frankenstein's monster could say the same thing, if [it was capable of thought." Uh... he literally was? That was kind of the whole point?? Did you not read the book???)
The main characters sucked. I love it when characters are assholes, but these particular assholes read like a teenager's diary. Rosario is a blatant self-insert and her perspective felt like reading someone's Pinterest board of 1960s London. And everything about Juan and Gaspar felt so childish and repetitive. No build up, no payoff, no change or even a clear refusal to change, no poetry in the repetition, just... whining? Forever? Occasionally there was an interesting side character - Vicky, Pablo, Betty, Laura – or a moment of narration that felt almost intelligent, like the start of Part 4. But we were always dragged back to the miserably stupid plot driving this thing, which speaks so eloquently about resistance and cycles of abuse but cannot really evoke them in any meaningful way. The ending is not worth spoiling but it is a total dud.
I’d say there’s promise here, but honestly, I walked away feeling like the author had nothing to say. Would not recommend, unless you don’t care about substance and just like gothic vibes, in which case, go right ahead. But comparing this to Bolano or Garcia Marquez is a joke.
(Also, stupid nitpick: At one point she writes "Frankenstein's monster could say the same thing, if [it was capable of thought." Uh... he literally was? That was kind of the whole point?? Did you not read the book???)