Absolutely WONDERFUL concept - remaking the legend of La Llorona as a physical & supernatural incarnation of generational trauma passed through Mexican American women - that unfortunately lacked in execution.

This was a very dry, very choppy, very clunky book. On a sentence level, there was just no variety or flow anywhere. There were various narrators from various time periods, and they all spoke exactly the same way. These all should have been INCREDIBLY different characterizations, but even the monster’s voice was hard to distinguish! 

When there were moments of reckoning and realization, those were very plainly told to the reader through awkward dialogue. The therapy sessions in particular were painful. I like to feel like I’m in conversation with stories - like they are a breathing entity in my hands - but this felt school-essay-like in its delivery. 

The scares were great in theory, but I felt as though I was layering my own imaginative skill over bare bones to deliver on the horror aspect.

Again, this was a beautiful, clever, creative concept. And I could see what this book could have become - but it fell entirely flat for me.

CW: suicide, suicidal ideation, death (parent/child), body horror, self harm, blood & gore, toxic relationship, mental illness, abuse, pregnancy, miscarriage, abandonment, sexism, racism, gaslighting, colonization, religious bigotry, xenophobia, rape (offscreen), war

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