Reviews with content warning for Cursing - Los Elementales

I agree with other people that India, Luker’s daughter, is super obnoxious and unrealistically written for her age, I honestly think this could have been a five star read for me if I wasn’t cringing every time she spoke or pulled out of the story for how unlikely really anything she does was for the age she was supposed to be. I understand that these characters were written to be unlikable, but her character was definitely overkill. I went through this pretty quickly and enjoyed the atmosphere and family dynamics of the book and I really liked Beldame as a setting. I liked how we slowly got pieces of the backstory behind Beldame instead of it all being info-dumped at once.

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night_shift's review against another edition

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challenging dark mysterious slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.0

A very slow read that creeps up on you to that wild ending. Definitely not scary, but a really solid southern gothic. I loved all the characters, especially father and daughter Lurker and India.
Gotta say the descriptions of the south, the heat, the people.. very spot on and finding out the author was an Alabama boy, makes perfect sense. Gunna have to pick up his other book, The Amulet.

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whatathymeitwas's review against another edition

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dark emotional mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

5.0

Shew lord. I don't know what kept me from reading this book for so long, when I've seen it so highly recommended. However I'm glad I read it when I did, right at the end of May. I live in the south, in the Appalachians of Tennessee, and right around the end of May is when we start getting soup air and higher temperatures, made more intolerable by that suffocating humidity. Reading a book set so brazenly in the heat and sun of summer around the end of May is perfect timing.

This book managed to be as southern Gothic as it gets. Combine some old, old families, one with a disturbing history, some creepy houses, and a few well-fleshed out main characters... and I just don't know what more I could have asked for. This is a slow burn, deeply atmospheric horror novel, written very well and ultimately worthy of the title "literary." I imagine people who picked this up out of the paperback selections of horror in the eighties were mighty surprised— many similar novels would pale in comparison.

I'm not sure what I might could say about this that others haven't already. I deign to pepper my reviews with reinstatements of the plot itself, that's what the blurb is for and many other reviewers have done so before me.

What I will say, is that once this started ramping up the creepiness factor, it didn't stop. McDowell was fantastic at smoothing things out for you and creating a hesitant sense of peacefulness, calm, and realistic thought process; immediately after he thrusts you back into the sand and you're left half buried and gasping for air. This started really creeping me out while I was reading at night. You go through many nights and days with the characters, and feel you're right alongside and interacting with them, whether it's for a bizarre family funeral, an evening birthday party, a hot noon walk by the lagoon, or peering out the windows at the full moon, the breaking Gulf, and the ever ominous Third House and all that lurks within it, seething and breathing in the languid summer heat.

That connection to the characters, the place, the general setting, and the inherently Gothic aspects of southern Alabama really transport you, and you're with them as their feet sink into dunes and slide across wooden floors caked in the ever-present pristine white sand, wondering if something might reach out and grab your ankle.

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crosberg's review against another edition

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dark mysterious sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.0

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mojavetent's review against another edition

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dark mysterious tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.0

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