Reviews with content warning for Child death - Temporada de huracanes

Written in stream of consciousness with shifting points of view. I felt like each character took a turn sitting down and telling their story while chain smoking and drinking. There are no reliable narrators, the story is told like a small town legend. Casually devastating at times.

I would say this is a challenging read, especially for someone not used to the writing style, but also because of the subject matter. All the trigger warnings, really.

It will stay with me for a while.

Content Warnings

elchivovivo's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious sad tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

A tour de fucking force.

Each chapter is a single paragraph with little or no room for breathing.

Melchor changes narrative voices like a boxer delivers his punches. And yet, the story flows like water.

The language is pure, and i am curious to see how anyone could translate this dense, boiling, gulf- Mexican dialect into another language. Or even to see how a non-mexican spanish speaker would absorb all the local slang.

What wrenches the heart is that the story, the darkness, the characters, are all realistic (if not based on true people). It reflects the hopeless trajectory of our country, which in spite of its beauty and depth seems to be cosmically, cosmogonically thirsting for blood drawn with violence.

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sas_lk's review against another edition

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dark sad tense

Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.25

This was very very heavy. Highly recommend reading the trigger warnings beforehand. And don't read this book if you are not in a great state of mind, it is filled to the brim with negativity, despair, sadness, horror.
I don't really have much else to say - not because it was nothing, but because I am still trying to understand how I feel. I have no idea what to say, no idea what to think. It's just heavy and sad.

Content Warnings

gillian_aftanas's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional sad tense medium-paced

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

1.25

I wouldn’t have picked up or finished this book if it hadn’t been assigned for a class. Stars were given for the interesting style of the prose, that while very difficult (and kind of annoying) to read certainly created the sense of chaos that comes with a hurricane that the book was emulating, and for the wonderful translation by Sophie Hughes that felt genuine and accurate to the original text. The subject matter was incredibly dark and graphic. It was very difficult to read because of how terrible all of the characters were, how much they hated themselves and everyone around them. Hatred for women, transgender people and queer people abounds here, do not expect any justice or happiness, there is no voice of reason. I would not recommend the book except for maybe the first chapter just to study the prose style if you are a writer. Pretty much every content warning applies in a major way.

Content Warnings