A review by ehmannky
Our Share of Night: A Novel by Mariana Enríquez, Megan McDowell

challenging dark emotional tense slow-paced

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

5.0

A sprawling and meandering horror book with a plot I feel like I cannot do justice to in a short summary. The general plot of the book follows Juan, a medium for a cult, and his son Gaspar over 30 years as Juan does everything in his power to keep Gaspar from being abused and used in the ways he was. But that feels so reductive because this book is so good and covers so much and it’s beautiful. It’s about the lingering effects that wealthy colonizers have had on people in the global south and rural poor (literally using up their bodies in the pursuit of riches), the damage of the greed of the already wealthy, the lingering psychological and physical effects from the trauma of a dictatorship and living with the ambiguous loss of the disappeared. This book forces you to read slowly, and you get to live out the pain and consuming fear and confusion of Gaspar. It’s so good, I cannot recommend this enough if you like horror.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Body horror, Child abuse, Child death, Chronic illness, Death, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Mental illness, Physical abuse, Self harm, Suicidal thoughts, Terminal illness, Torture, Violence, Blood, Grief, Medical trauma, Death of parent, Murder, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Animal death, Slavery, and Colonisation

Minor: Cancer, Gun violence, Rape, and War