A review by the_bard
Down the Rabbit Hole by Juan Pablo Villalobos

3.0

I tagged this as Magical Realism, although there's nothing really overtly fantastical. It just overall feels...magical realist to me, mostly for the vaguely surreal, blackly comic way the narrator, a 7-year-old Mexican boy, perceives and deals with the dark, disturbing world around him. I'm incredibly impressed at how the author is able to attack Mexican politics, crime, and cultural machismo AND the imperialist politics of the US AND the post-colonial problems of Africa in a mere 70 pages.