After looking for some horror books to try and get into, I found this book by chance on NetGalley and was not disappointed!
Published: June 4, 2019 (today!)
Author: Ann Dávila Cardinal
My NetGalley Rating: 5/5
My NetGalley Review:
It might look like I give a lot of positive reviews, but it’s more the fact that I’m extremely choosy about the books I spend my time with. I’m glad I picked this one up when I was perusing through NetGalley!
I’m a big fan of creepy stories, and have had an extremely hard time finding a good creepy story to read. This one definitely tickled my fancy. The author did a fantastic job in transporting the reader to Puerto Rico, the beautiful areas to the crime ridden ones, to move the story along. I felt like I could picture the locations that they went to.
The romance in this book was fantastic. I appreciate an author who can cultivate relationships and not just plunge the poor reader into a cold bath of “I love you soooo much”although it might not be relevant. I felt that the ending was a bit rushed, but I felt satisfied after seeing the loose ends tied up.
As a biracial person myself, I found the focus on identity to be grating at first, but it did make sense as the story continued. I can’t dock stars for that. 🙂
If you enjoy creepy things, with a bit of romance and mystery in a tropical setting, I’d suggest picking up the book… it just came out today!
What I liked about the book:
When I enjoy a good book, I want to read it during work, not only after work! I binged this book today whenever I had a chance to pull out my Kindle at work and kept reading because I really had to find out how this whole thing was going to end.
This author really did her research on drugs and drug addiction, which I noticed from the last few pages of the book that she did quite a bit of research into this whole novel. The pang of desire for an addict and how easy it is to start using was just so well written out that I could really feel for the characters who were involved with addiction. It was interesting to see how many characters addiction touched in this story.
I also enjoyed the characters. They had realistic drives and interests with backgrounds and history that made sense to their personalities. Relationships were cultivated and not forced, which I really appreciated since I really abhor super romantic and not realistic romantic writing. It felt like romance was a side point and not the focus, which was great because Ann Dávila Cardinal really focused on the creepy stuff! Yay!!!
Speaking of creepy: I enjoyed the thread of unease throughout the book. I also enjoy SCP Foundation stories. It’s not totally on the same level of SCP, but is definitely a step in that direction that is hard to find for some reason.
What I wasn’t a fan of:
The main thing I wasn’t a fan of in the writing was just how quickly everything wrapped up into a nice bow. I wasn’t totally expecting some of the main characters to do what they did at the end, and those relationships felt a tad rushed. (It might be because it’s also a YA — this isn’t my typical genre so I’m not sure what to expect) ((I also edited my original statement because I don’t want to spoil the story))
One minor thing that did get on my nerves was the focus on being biracial and not belonging. I totally get that there’s a reason for it, but it hit a little too close to home for me as a biracial person… though Ann might know as well, being a Gringa-Rican!
Who is this for?
Anyone who is looking for a quick read of multicultural urban horror!
One Boring Hapa 