Reviews

Mixing border crossings with the supernatural, Gabino Iglesias's THE DEVIL TAKES YOU HOME is the among the darkest of noirs. After Mario loses his daughter (and marriage) to cancer, he finds himself drawn into "one last job" with a big payday, hoping to win back his ex-wife and start anew. If you're at all ishy about violence, this is NOT the book for you— I admit to my toes curling during one particular scene— but none of it feels superfluous to the story. Iglesias's writing is vivid, artful, and has a lot to say about why people behave the way they do when backed into a corner. I'll be thinking about this book for awhile.

Content Warnings

hales2000's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional mysterious reflective slow-paced

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

3.75

riverwind's review against another edition

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3.0

Rounded up the rating because it is written beautifully. But it was billed as horror through BOTM and definitely wasn’t horror so much as horrific, with gratuitous violence to the point it made me feel ill, and I read a lot of horror. All the characters were horrible people aside from the poor child and the the wife/mother at the beginning. It’s hard reading a book when you have no one to root for.

shksprsis's review against another edition

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dark mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

A big part of me thinks this would have made a better movie. Still pretty good though.

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