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A review by pineconek
Monstrilio by Gerardo Sámano Córdova
challenging
dark
emotional
reflective
sad
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
Me, in my literary critic voice: ah yes, Frankenstein meets My Sweet Audrina.
While my affections for this book followed a steady slow burn, I admit that I was charmed as of the first page. Check out this incredible first sentence:
"Her son dies in a child-sized bed, big enough for him but barel enough to hold her and her husband who cling to the edges, folding themselves small so they fit one on each side of him."
And then soon followed by:
"Her son was alive and now he isn't. No thunder, no angels weeping, no cloaked Death, no grace; just his silent body, breathing, and the blunt realization that this is it.
How dull, she thinks. She could scream, get on her knees, pull out her hair, curse God. Take me, she could plead while beating her chest with her fist. She won't. She can't rally the drama she once imagined."
(Ok I tricked you into starting the book, no take-backs!)
The child, Santiago, dies in the first pages of the story. But the grieving mother employs the powers of magical realism to keep a part of him alive. Her son was born with one lung, and she takes a piece of that lung and nurtures it (with chicken broth at first but then....larger things). And, so, Monstrillo is born.
The four parts of the story, each narrated by a different character, tell the life of Monstrillo: from a clump of cells to a vicious ball of fur, claws, and teeth, from a creature feasting on small mammals to one that can pass for a human boy. Is he human or monster (Frankenstein, although the parallels don't end there)? Is he Santiago or a crude replacement (My Sweet Audrina)?
This book is filled with meditations on grief, reflections on who children are to their parents, unrequited love (so much unrequited love and pining oh my), and some really weird and twisted performance art. And gore and body horror. If that sounds up your alley...
In sum: this lives in my head rent-free now. Dare I say 5 stars?
While my affections for this book followed a steady slow burn, I admit that I was charmed as of the first page. Check out this incredible first sentence:
"Her son dies in a child-sized bed, big enough for him but barel enough to hold her and her husband who cling to the edges, folding themselves small so they fit one on each side of him."
And then soon followed by:
"Her son was alive and now he isn't. No thunder, no angels weeping, no cloaked Death, no grace; just his silent body, breathing, and the blunt realization that this is it.
How dull, she thinks. She could scream, get on her knees, pull out her hair, curse God. Take me, she could plead while beating her chest with her fist. She won't. She can't rally the drama she once imagined."
(Ok I tricked you into starting the book, no take-backs!)
The child, Santiago, dies in the first pages of the story. But the grieving mother employs the powers of magical realism to keep a part of him alive. Her son was born with one lung, and she takes a piece of that lung and nurtures it (with chicken broth at first but then....larger things). And, so, Monstrillo is born.
The four parts of the story, each narrated by a different character, tell the life of Monstrillo: from a clump of cells to a vicious ball of fur, claws, and teeth, from a creature feasting on small mammals to one that can pass for a human boy. Is he human or monster (Frankenstein, although the parallels don't end there)? Is he Santiago or a crude replacement (My Sweet Audrina)?
This book is filled with meditations on grief, reflections on who children are to their parents, unrequited love (so much unrequited love and pining oh my), and some really weird and twisted performance art. And gore and body horror. If that sounds up your alley...
In sum: this lives in my head rent-free now. Dare I say 5 stars?