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A review by peripetia
Monstrilio by Gerardo Sámano Córdova
2.0
This was a massive disappointment. I was really expecting to love this, which probably makes my reaction to it even more negative. I waited literally months for this book from the library, and for what?
This book does not explore grief except in a very superficial way. We know the characters are grieving because their son died, but how does their grief show in the book? We see something in the beginning, with the mother (Magos) just being weird and annoying and the father (Joseph) crying.
And yes, I think it's fair to call a supposedly grieving mother annoying because grieving does not give you the right to be this kind of a selfish asshole (see, for example, how she treats her friend who she KNOWS has been in love with her like forever).
The characters are flat, the writing is flat, the POVs are strange. What does the best friend's perspective give to the story? How do her kinks and difficult past contribute? If we saw Magos grieving, it would make sense, but all we see are her and Monstrilio growing without the characters reacting to it/him with any emotion.
Supposedly they are showing their grief by acting strangely and for sure, grief can make you do that, but acting strangely is not immediately grief, if you get what I mean.
I don't understand why Monstrilio's POV suddenly didn't include quotation marks. His POV was the most interesting but his part was also short.
I found the plot to be quite ridiculous. Things just kind of work out. Magos, a person who has not worked seemingly ever and has no skills, decides to become a performance artist out of all things and lo and behold! she is now an incredibly successful performance artist living in Berlin with her Monstrilio, who she is calling Santiago after her dead son. This, using the dead son's name, finally gave SOME depth to the superficial grieving.
If this book was described as an exploration of queerness I would be much less negative, because that is the main theme of the book. All of the characters show this in some way.
Ignoring the problems with the writing and the plot, I was just plain bored. This book just lost its point very fast. I did not care about any of the characters and it was hard to since they remained so distant. I don't understand what people are raving about. In general I think people are reading weird books as automatically good, so maybe it's that.
This book does not explore grief except in a very superficial way. We know the characters are grieving because their son died, but how does their grief show in the book? We see something in the beginning, with the mother (Magos) just being weird and annoying and the father (Joseph) crying.
And yes, I think it's fair to call a supposedly grieving mother annoying because grieving does not give you the right to be this kind of a selfish asshole (see, for example, how she treats her friend who she KNOWS has been in love with her like forever).
The characters are flat, the writing is flat, the POVs are strange. What does the best friend's perspective give to the story? How do her kinks and difficult past contribute? If we saw Magos grieving, it would make sense, but all we see are her and Monstrilio growing without the characters reacting to it/him with any emotion.
Supposedly they are showing their grief by acting strangely and for sure, grief can make you do that, but acting strangely is not immediately grief, if you get what I mean.
I don't understand why Monstrilio's POV suddenly didn't include quotation marks. His POV was the most interesting but his part was also short.
I found the plot to be quite ridiculous. Things just kind of work out. Magos, a person who has not worked seemingly ever and has no skills, decides to become a performance artist out of all things and lo and behold! she is now an incredibly successful performance artist living in Berlin with her Monstrilio, who she is calling Santiago after her dead son. This, using the dead son's name, finally gave SOME depth to the superficial grieving.
If this book was described as an exploration of queerness I would be much less negative, because that is the main theme of the book. All of the characters show this in some way.
Ignoring the problems with the writing and the plot, I was just plain bored. This book just lost its point very fast. I did not care about any of the characters and it was hard to since they remained so distant. I don't understand what people are raving about. In general I think people are reading weird books as automatically good, so maybe it's that.