Tag: Horror

“Monstrilio” Review

Jen

The background of the cover is textured gray/green and there are several shapes around the cover, triangles, squares and circles. At the bottom middle is the head and chest of creature with pointed ears larger than its head and red eyes. The title of the book is at the top with the author's name in the middle. Written by Gerardo Sámano Córdova
Published by Zando, March 2023
336 pages
Completed August 8, 2024

After her son dies, Magos carves out a small piece of his lung. Acting on fierce maternal instinct and the dubious logic of an old folktale, she nurtures the lung until it gains sentience, growing into the carnivorous little Monstrilio she keeps hidden within the walls of her decaying childhood home in Mexico City. But despite her best efforts to turn the monster into a man, Monstrilio’s innate impulses threaten to destroy this fragile second chance at life.

A meditation on grief, acceptance, and the monstrous sides of love and loyalty, Gerardo Sámano Córdova’s ambitious debut spans the globe from Brooklyn to Berlin, offering an uncanny and precise portrait of being human.

This was such a weird book (and a bit more sexually explicit, in a couple brief scenes, than I’d usually read), but also very good. The story is split into four sections with different narrators for each one – Magos, her best friend, her husband, and finally Monstrilio. Monstrilio’s section is probably the most complex as he is working out who he actually is and how he will continue to live. He ends up making a choice in the end that isn’t really a surprise considering all that has happened. Overall I felt like all four of the characters were unlikeable but sympathetic in their own ways, which made the book interesting to read. Monstrilio was obviously the most sympathetic because of how he was created and forced to be something he’s not by the choices others made.

See the StoryGraph Page for “Monstrilio” for more reviews and content warnings.

“Certain Dark Things” Review

Jen

There is a large circle with triangles and other shapes around the circumference of the circle. In front of the circle is a the head of a dog facing left and a woman standing turned slightly to the right. She is wearing a black jacket with a high color. The title is over the bottom half of the cover and then the author's name is at the bottom. Written by Silvia Moreno-Garcia
Published by Tor Nightfire, September 2021 (reprint, originally published 2016)
336 pages
Completed August 3, 2024

Welcome to Mexico City, an oasis in a sea of vampires. Domingo, a lonely garbage-collecting street kid, is just trying to survive its heavily policed streets when a jaded vampire on the run swoops into his life. Atl, the descendant of Aztec blood drinkers, is smart, beautiful, and dangerous. Domingo is mesmerized.

Atl needs to quickly escape the city, far from the rival narco-vampire clan relentlessly pursuing her. Her plan doesn’t include Domingo, but little by little, Atl finds herself warming up to the scrappy young man and his undeniable charm. As the trail of corpses stretches behind her, local cops and crime bosses both start closing in.

Vampires, humans, cops, and criminals collide in the dark streets of Mexico City. Do Atl and Domingo even stand a chance of making it out alive? Or will the city devour them all?

Not quite my usual cup of tea but I ended up enjoying this book a lot. I read it because I enjoyed another of the author’s books (“Mexican Gothic” also reviewed on this site). The characters were interesting and I enjoyed reading the various points of views in the book and thought they worked well. We see not just Atl and Domingo’s perspective but also members of the rival vampire clan and the police officer that was looking for them. The book ends about like you’d expect from this sort of story with everyone converging all at once. I also felt like the resolution of Atl and Domingo’s relationship made sense given who Atl is.

See the StoryGraph page for “Certain Dark Things” for more reviews and content warnings.

“The Spirit Bares Its Teeth” Review

Jen

The cover has a young person standing in the middle of it facing forwards but with their head turned to the right. Their skin is very pale white with brown hair and they are wearing a purple dress and holding a broken shard of glass that is also purple. Behind them is a sky in purple with white clouds. They're framed in an oval shaped image with other images of violet eyes all around the cover. The authors name is at the top and the title is at the bottom on a ribbon that is wrapped around the picture frame. Written by Andrew Joseph White
Published by Peachtree Publishing Company, September 2023
381 pages
Completed July 21, 2024

London, 1883. The Veil between the living and dead has thinned. Violet-eyed mediums commune with spirits under the watchful eye of the Royal Speaker Society, and sixteen-year-old Silas Bell would rather rip out his violet eyes than become an obedient Speaker wife. According to Mother, he’ll be married by the end of the year. It doesn’t matter that he’s needed a decade of tutors to hide his autism; that he practices surgery on slaughtered pigs; that he is a boy, not the girl the world insists on seeing.

After a failed attempt to escape an arranged marriage, Silas is diagnosed with Veil sickness—a mysterious disease sending violet-eyed women into madness—and shipped away to Braxton’s Sanitorium and Finishing School. The facility is cold, the instructors merciless, and the students either bloom into eligible wives or disappear. So when the ghosts of missing students start begging Silas for help, he decides to reach into Braxton’s innards and expose its rotten guts to the world—as long as the school doesn’t break him first.

This was such a good book with a lot of great characters besides Silas. While it doesn’t have quite as much gore as the other’s other book, there is some, all with a medical focus this time. I really enjoyed how Silas struggles to work everything out while dealing with everything else going on for him. The plot is very dark and disturbing but I really like how everything plays out. Certain things were not a surprise while others completely were and I really enjoyed it all. And I was really glad a particular plot point was resolved the way it did. The ending is a bit open ended but I think it makes sense given the storyline.

Be sure to take note of the authors warnings at the beginning of the book. Also be sure to read the authors end notes because while this story is fantasy the ugly truth is people always been sent a way because they were deemed unfit by society and many have been experimented on throughout history.

See the StoryGraph page for “The Spirit Bares Its Teeth” for more reviews and content warnings.

“Gideon the Ninth” Review

Jen

Gideon the Ninth book cover showing a person standing holding a sword in one hand wearing all black with red hair and face painted as a skull. They are surrounded by parts of many different skeletons on a black background. The Title of the book is at the bottom with the author's name on top. Written by Tamsyn Muir
Published by Tor.com, September 2019
464 pages
Completed June 27, 2024

Brought up by unfriendly, ossifying nuns, ancient retainers, and countless skeletons, Gideon is ready to abandon a life of servitude and an afterlife as a reanimated corpse. She packs up her sword, her shoes, and her dirty magazines, and prepares to launch her daring escape. But her childhood nemesis won’t set her free without a service.

Harrowhark Nonagesimus, Reverend Daughter of the Ninth House and bone witch extraordinaire, has been summoned into action. The Emperor has invited the heirs to each of his loyal Houses to a deadly trial of wits and skill. If Harrowhark succeeds she will be become an immortal, all-powerful servant of the Resurrection, but no necromancer can ascend without their cavalier. Without Gideon’s sword, Harrow will fail, and the Ninth House will die.

I read this for one of my Discord book clubs and it’s ultimately not my cup of tea. I tried to give it a fair chance but the personalities of the main characters and the writing style made it harder to get through than I like. I also ended up needing the Wikipedia for the book series to keep track of all of the characters. All of the characters were referred to by first name, last name, nickname, or sometimes only a description, depending on who was talking and some had similar names, which made it hard to keep track. That said there were some interesting parts, the world building seemed interesting if not fully described, and I did like how the relationship between Gideon and Harrowhark developed despite my frustration with them in the beginning. I don’t believe I’ll continue the series at this time, but you never know.

“Never Whistle at Night” Review

Jen

Around the edge of the cover are various images of plants, flowers and animals (a snake, mouse, frog, snail and butterfly). The title of the book is in the center with the subtitle above it and the names of the editors below it. Full Title: “Never Whistle at Night: An Indigenous Dark Fiction Anthology”
Edited by Shane Hawk and Theodore C. Van Alst Jr.
Published by Vintage, September 2023
384 Pages
Completed January 12, 2024

Many Indigenous people believe that one should never whistle at night. This belief takes many forms: for instance, Native Hawaiians believe it summons the Hukai’po, the spirits of ancient warriors, and Native Mexicans say it calls Lechuza, a witch that can transform into an owl. But what all these legends hold in common is the certainty that whistling at night can cause evil spirits to appear—and even follow you home.

These wholly original and shiver-inducing tales introduce readers to ghosts, curses, hauntings, monstrous creatures, complex family legacies, desperate deeds, and chilling acts of revenge. Introduced and contextualized by bestselling author Stephen Graham Jones, these stories are a celebration of Indigenous peoples’ survival and imagination, and a glorious reveling in all the things an ill-advised whistle might summon.

I always say this but anthologies are a fun way to be introduced to a group of new authors all at once. In this case there were a few author’s I’ve already read but it was good to see more of their work. There were a few stories I didn’t really understand but overall I really enjoyed this anthology. It was a good mix of types of horror stories where sometimes the horror came more from people (colonizers) rather than the supernatural which is to be expected when reading Indigenous stories. This will be another anthology where I look up all the authors and see what else they have written.