Mexican Gothic | Silvia Moreno-Garcia

Read If: you liked the gothic lit vibe in high school but don't want to read 200 pages of Victorian English dialogue, you want to read more bipoc authors, fungi don't freak you out, you love local legends and mystery.

I danced around this book for a while as the reviews came out and everyone loved it. Eventually, I gave in and snagged it, a little excited by the prospect of returning to "gothic" after years and years away from any English Lit courses.

Moreno-Garcia definitely gets the gothic vibe down when it comes to the family and surroundings, but I really struggled with meshing the whole story together. The main character is bold, sassy, sexy, and somewhat naive - and somehow, that naivety sticks with her throughout most of the story, even up to the end. I didn't see a lot of growth in her, but I did see a lot of chances to change the outcome that she ignored or wrote off quickly, which made the story seem unrealistic and not as challenging as it could be.

Final notes: The main character's attitude and handling of the situation was frequently annoying/frustrating; the other characters were all unlikable. But the overall background, once you step away from the present in the story, was very interesting and definitely had local legend vibes.

It felt like it was supposed to be more than a leisure read, but didn't quite reach a depth beyond that.