I’m sharing another instalment of my Mini Review Mondays, the most recent of which was last week. In case you haven’t seen any of my previous posts, I do ‘mini’ reviews of books that I’ve previously read and am now ready to share my full thoughts about.
First up, I’d like to talk about The Haunting of Alejandra by V. Castro. Thank you to Ballantine and Del Rey for sending me an eARC in exchange for an honest review.
Alejandra no longer knows who she is. To her husband, she is a wife, and to her children, a mother. But they cannot see who Alejandra has become: a woman struggling with a darkness that threatens to consume her. Nor can they see what Alejandra sees. In times of despair, a ghostly vision appears to her, the apparition of a crying woman in a ragged white gown.
When Alejandra visits a therapist, she begins exploring her family’s history, starting with the biological mother she only recently rediscovered. As she goes deeper into the lives of the women in her family, she learns that heartbreak and tragedy are not the only things she has in common with her ancestors. Because the crying woman was with them, too.
She is La Llorona, the vengeful and murderous mother of Mexican legend. And she will not leave until Alejandra follows her grandmother, and all the women who came before her into the darkness. But Alejandra has inherited more than just pain. She has inherited the strength and the courage of her foremothers-and she will have to summon everything they have given her to banish La Llorona forever.
Publication Date: 18th April
TW:menstruation, suicidal ideation, sexual assault, pregnancy and birthing, miscarriage, bloody injury and gore, medical gaslighting, parental abandonment, religious oppression
My Thoughts:
The Haunting of Alejandra was hauntingly beautiful and horrific in equal measures.
Castro delves deep into intergenerational trauma, the way women are abused by the patriarchy and a reclamation of one’s own life. The weight of the history of oppression weighs heavy and I loved how each woman got their own section of the narrative. These were stunning excerpts, totally imaginative and immersive. They were all also unspeakably tragic. Castro welds in darkness and the horror of humanity without hesitation. Through everything, we follow Alejandra. She was a character I instantly connected with, feeling her fractured nature and conflicting desires. Her voice was so compelling and emotionally rich. The narrative entirely spins around her and the slow reveal of her family history, intersecting with the dark curse placed upon them.
It is no secret that I adore the Gothic genre and I think it was the perfect vehicle for this story. Castro takes many tropes of the genre and reimagines them in fresh, startling ways that often intersect with the societal or personal commentary of the scene. This is woven with a retelling of the La Llorona myth and the way Castro blends genres and cultures is superb. There has often been a villainization of anyone considered the other in the Gothic, but Castro delves deeper than this into a grey morality. When choices are forced upon you or there is none other than survival, you will be pushed to unspeakable places. Through this, there is a commentary on the evolution of patriarchal and colonial power, how it intersects and the specific violence done upon the bodies of women of colour. It is deeply powerful and emotional, with a raw vulnerability and an unflinching need to show the full truth.
The Haunting of Alejandra takes questions of legacy, trauma and modern motherhood and combines them with a searing and Gothic narrative.
Next up, I’d like to talk about This Delicious Death by Kayla Cottingham. Thank you to Sourcebooks Fire for sending me an eARC in exchange for an honest review.
Five years ago, the melting of arctic permafrost released a pathogen of unknown origin into the atmosphere, causing a small percentage of people to undergo a transformation that became known as the Hollowing. Those impacted slowly became intolerant to normal food and were only able to gain sustenance by consuming the flesh of other human beings. Those who went without flesh quickly became feral, turning on their friends and family. However, scientists were able to create a synthetic version of human meat that would satisfy the hunger of those impacted by the Hollowing. As a result, humanity slowly began to return to normal, albeit with lasting fear and distrust for the people they’d pejoratively dubbed ghouls.
Zoey, Celeste, Valeria, and Jasmine are all ghouls living in Southern California. As a last hurrah before their graduation they decided to attend a musical festival in the desert. They have a cooler filled with hard seltzers and syn-flesh and are ready to party.
But on the first night of the festival Val goes feral, and ends up killing and eating a boy. As other festival guests start disappearing around them the girls soon discover someone is drugging ghouls and making them feral. And if they can’t figure out how to stop it, and soon, no one at the festival is safe.
Publication Date: 25th April
TW: anxiety, blood, gore, body horror, cannibalism, captivity, confinement, dead bodies, deadnaming, death, drugging, drug use, fire, grief, loss, gun violence, intrusive thoughts, murder, nightmares, racism, white supremacy, parental neglect, needles, scars, sexism, pandemic, suicidal ideation, transphobia (all taken from the start of the book)
My Thoughts:
This Delicious Death was a darkly comedic mix of gut-churning horror, queer romance and the power of female friendship, set in a post-apocalyptic music festival. If that does not hook you, I do not know what will!
Kayla Cottingham intrigued me deeply with My Dearest Darkest last year with compelling writing, flawed, three-dimensional characters and plenty of juicy twists. It also played so well with atmosphere and blurring that line between fantasy and reality. Already, I knew I had to pick up their next sapphic horror. This Delicious Death took me on the mad-cap ride of my life. This has everything you could ask for: terror, twists, turns, teenage romance and throats being ripped out.
As an important note, I really want to commend the extensive trigger warnings at the beginning of the book. They were fairly detailed and covered everything. It is always good to see these and I hope they become more normalised as a feature of books.
Once more, I feel like Cottingham excels in their characterisation. I appreciated how quietly diverse the book was, with normalised representation. These are authentically teenage voices, with dialogue that sounds genuine and without cliche. Zoey was an incredible protagonist, sparky and driven by her friendship with these girls. Watching her navigate the horrors of her past and transformation was heart-breaking and Cottingham really sits with the idea of the world totally shifting, with all the fallout ensuing. Also, her awkwardness in her crush is so endearing and their entire dynamic was sweet, making it so easy to root for these two to end up together. Amidst this, you also have an exciting and twist-heavy plotline of whodunnit with a literal interpretation of eating boys for breakfast. Cottingham’s overarching message is one of combating bigotry in all forms, something that hits that much harder in the current climate.
This Delicious Death cements Cottingham as a monarch of darkness. If stabby, slashy and sinister sapphics are your thing, this is an author you need to discover immediately.
Finally, I’d like to delve into Lying in the Deep by Diana Urban. Thank you to Razorbill for sending me an eARC in exchange for an honest review.
A juicy mystery of jealousy, love, and betrayal set on a Semester at Sea-inspired cruise ship, with a diverse cast of delightfully suspicious characters who’ll leave you guessing with every jaw-dropping twist.
After being jilted by her ex-boyfriend and best friend, Jade couldn’t be more ready to embark on the adventure of a lifetime—11 countries in 4 months, all from the luxurious Campus on Board ship—and to wedge an entire globe between her and the people who broke her heart.
But when Jade discovers the backstabbing couple are also setting sail, her obsession with them grows and festers, leading to a shocking murder. And as their friends begin to drop like flies, Jade and her new crush must race to clear her name and find the killer they’re trapped at sea with….before anyone else winds up in body bags.
Publication Date: 2nd May
TW: death, murder, hanging, emotional abuse, blackmail, blood, vomit, alcohol, drug use, violence, injury, cheating
My Thoughts:
Lying in the Deep proves why Diana Urban is quickly becoming another go-to for YA mysteries for me.
Every single time she manages to pull the rug entirely out from under my feet. She sets out these complex mysteries with plenty of threads for you to follow and red herrings to get lost chasing. However, she will always leave you reeling, even if you think you have it all sussed. Lying in the Deep continues this trend with aplomb. It was another highly bingeable and thrilling read, with twists and turns aplenty.
It also heavily features some intriguing character work and a large focus on the fractured interpersonal relationships of these characters. I like how Urban’s books always sit in this ambiguous morality. You meet fractured characters who have often done terrible things or initially feel like caricatures of media depictions of teenagers. As you spend more time with them, they become three-dimensional and expose the reductive dismissal those stereotypes embody. Once again, this group felt relatable and real, with believable motivations and reactions. In a claustrophobic setting like this, everyone becomes a suspect, meaning a lot of this story rests on your perception and understanding of these characters.
I also really appreciate how socially conscious this was with an interesting rumination on the commercialisation of the medical industry, the ethics of medical insurance policy and generally a damning indictment of the pharmaceutical industry. It felt similar to a recent binge-watch of mine that I highly recommend: Wreck. This is a dark comedy murder mystery set aboard a cruise ship that delves into beauty standards, capitalism and exploitation of free labour. These two stories really marry well together, so a dual screening and reading experience would be amazing.
Lying in the Deep transports the locked room mystery to a fantastically imagined setting and fills it with shocks, surprises and startling social commentary.
A Short Book Lover 
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