salesforce 's review for:

The Queen of the Cicadas by V. Castro

2.0

dark emotional mysterious fast-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

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Not a fan of this novel! Feels like an extreme version of "tell don't show" because details are constantly over-described to hammer home how bad the conditions are. It's strange because a few themes are really well-portrayed (womanhood gets 5 stars from me) but most of them are given entirely literally with no metaphorical or allegorical prose. Reading things like "brown skin" several times just felt like a slog to me. There's so much to get out of reading a text against or within a certain frame instead of having the text tell you explicitly how to read it... and besides, the whole point is that I can imagine what's going on! instead of having to adhere to every specific thing the author wants me to get right in my head. The prose wasn't fun or interesting to read either; the second half read like a compilation of plot points that had to be said but had no aesthetic consideration given to how they were said. I'm not a fan of heavy gore or revenge stories so that also skews my rating, but I think the book is poorly written and generally boring. Love the Aztec mythology (criminally underused in fiction) and references to the Chicano Movement... that's kind of about it though. The details are all there but the presentation is pretty forgettable. unfortunately mediocre...