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A review by melreadsandrecs
The Haunting of Alejandra by V. Castro
1.0
I'm sorry, but this was subjectively, to me, a really bad book. I found out not only poorly written but problematic. This review will be fairly brief but will contain spoilers.
Firstly, the characterization was very weak. Every character sounded and acted the exact same. The POV would change and I wouldn't even notice, since threw characters were just copied and pasted.
More importantly, the plot was extremely weak. Alejandra faces challenges, kind of. But every obstacle is unrealistically easy to solve. She finds her birth parents with ease, despite having been in a closed adoption. She finds and can afford a therapist within a matter of minutes, and of course the therapist has no wait list or screening needs. Of course her husband magically agrees to a very easy divorce despite everything we've been told about him being competitive and callous. Of course her therapist knows a soil analyst (which didn't even really make sense) Of course she gets released from the hospital after a suicide attempt with no issue, even though in real life a hospitalization like that costs thousands and usually ruins your life.
Which brings me to what I thought was problematic about the book: it absolutely failed at depicting the tenacity required to actually overcome post partum depression and the difficulties of motherhood. If everybody could just get into therapy within an hour, we wouldn't be losing mothers and children to suicide and infanticide the way we are. If therapists could do random house calls at the drop of a hat, we might not have police killings of people in mental health crises. And it is irresponsible to write a plot a suicide attempt be the solution to any problem.
Yeah the more I write, the less sorry I am for the low rating. Truly what the hell did I just read.
Firstly, the characterization was very weak. Every character sounded and acted the exact same. The POV would change and I wouldn't even notice, since threw characters were just copied and pasted.
More importantly, the plot was extremely weak. Alejandra faces challenges, kind of. But every obstacle is unrealistically easy to solve. She finds her birth parents with ease, despite having been in a closed adoption. She finds and can afford a therapist within a matter of minutes, and of course the therapist has no wait list or screening needs. Of course her husband magically agrees to a very easy divorce despite everything we've been told about him being competitive and callous. Of course her therapist knows a soil analyst (which didn't even really make sense) Of course she gets released from the hospital after a suicide attempt with no issue, even though in real life a hospitalization like that costs thousands and usually ruins your life.
Which brings me to what I thought was problematic about the book: it absolutely failed at depicting the tenacity required to actually overcome post partum depression and the difficulties of motherhood. If everybody could just get into therapy within an hour, we wouldn't be losing mothers and children to suicide and infanticide the way we are. If therapists could do random house calls at the drop of a hat, we might not have police killings of people in mental health crises. And it is irresponsible to write a plot a suicide attempt be the solution to any problem.
Yeah the more I write, the less sorry I am for the low rating. Truly what the hell did I just read.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Child abuse, Child death, Miscarriage, Self harm, Sexual violence, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Abortion, Suicide attempt, and Pregnancy