Reviews with content warning for Xenophobia - Mexican Gothic

An interesting premise, intriguing plot, and a deplorable cast of characters.

I have mixed feelings about this book. It obviously held my interest, but it's rare to not positively engage with any character.

Catalina and Ruth get a pass, but the rest of the characters were either sick, twisted, and thoroughly evil, shallow, self-centered, and pompous, or just woefully pathetic.

Noemi, the FMC/protagonist, is nothing more than a wilful, spoiled, rich girl with delusions of grandeur. She's flaky as hell, uppity, shallow, manipulative, and pig-headed. Not to mention her naivety. She's quite obnoxious and annoying.

I honestly didn't care if any of them made it out alive, but the writing held my interest until the very end. I needed to see how this all resolved; good, bad, or ugly.

Now that's not to say I didn't enjoy the book, it just wasn't quite what I expected. The world building, lore, and horror was top-notch. The characters were well fleshed out and felt quite real; they were all just awful people.

If you're a sensitive reader I implore you to mind your squicks. There's a lot of abuse, gaslighting, and body horror within this book.

I enjoyed it, but YMMV of course.

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sauriaiel's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

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emthewitch333's review

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adventurous challenging dark mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

After seeing mixed reviews I wasn't sure how this book would go. I am very glad that it exceeded my expectations. This is legitimately one of the best books I've read, at least in the horror genre. I enjoyed it immensely- while being appropriately disturbed at points. There were familiar tropes but with twists that made it still interesting. The characters were complex. Super impressed with this book.

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ahmay's review

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dark emotional hopeful mysterious sad tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.0

Interesting concept, however, the execution was lacking. I get that it’s supposed to be mysterious and weird but a lot of things are just told and not shown or explained—the irony being that I find a lot of details to be over explained.

It’s just the way it is.

Boring. At times, awkward. It feels like the narrator is trying to be deeper than they actually are.

The book is set in the 50s, but the dialogue isn’t very characteristic of this time period, ruining the immersion for me.

Now, I’m a sucker for romance, so Francis and Noemí was mostly the only thing that kept me turning the page.

Also lots of grossness, very much horror ! But as I said, the over-explaining annoys me to no end.

I don’t get how Great Uncle Howard had so much influence on everyone else? I suppose they were deeply infected by the spores and whatnot, but the portrayal of him as a godly figure is lacking. To me, he’s just some creepy old guy. And I get that I’m an “outsider,” so I can’t completely understand. But I’m sure there was a much better way of showing his power and control.

I’m sure I have more to say (and a better way of wording my review) because I cannot shut up for the life of me, but that’s all for now. :)

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jayinbee's review

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dark mysterious medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.5

I don't know if it was because I had too many spoilers or if it was the fact that I just finished the first book in a series and wanted to continue on with it but this came available from the library first or because I read another gothic novel recently and it filled the mood for a while but something about this one just didn't hit as well as I had expected. It was good- the shifting between reality and the nightmares/memories/hallucinations was eerie. The explanations for all the strange things were fine. The characters- especially Noemi- and the writing were good. I wanted to keep reading (even though I had a pretty good idea of how it would go from the start), but it just didn't capture me as fully as some similar books I had read. It was a good story and I was glad to see a happy ending but that was the extent of my emotions toward it.

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yeah_nahnia's review

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dark emotional mysterious sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

This is a fantastic piece about deep, dark family secrets and what happens when you unearth them (literally!) with a gripping final act that'll leave you chilled to the very last page :)

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ebp's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.0

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