youfelinedevil 's review for:

Cold Skin by Albert Sánchez Piñol
4.0

“We are never very far from those we hate. For this very reason, we shall never be truly close to those we love.”

I have a very complicated relationship with this book. I really enjoyed reading it, but I'm not sure I entirely... get it. As satire, it's wonderful. I feel like there might be a point in here about colonialism, which, I mean, not the greatest thing to
make the natives literal monsters
. It seems to be specifically critical of masculinity and male violence. In any case it's definitely a story about castaways,
three
people who come together only to isolate themselves from each other.

I love an unreliable narrator; he's incredibly neurotic and makes the most questionable leaps in logic. Delusional. Very funny, ironic. The end seems to veer sharply into magical realism, but I don't know, I like that.

Once again, I enjoyed reading it, despite the sexual and physical violence. I hope that wasn't condoned by the author. I loved the descriptions of the landscape and
the monsters, especially once the narrator learns more about them.