User Profile

dania

dania@bookwyrm.social

Joined 2 months, 1 week ago

This link opens in a pop-up window

reviewed Un lugar soleado para gente sombría by Mariana Enriquez (Narrativas hispánicas, #735)

Mariana Enriquez: Un lugar soleado para gente sombría (Paperback, castellano language, 2024, anagrama)

Mariana Enriquez regresa al cuento con doce historias de horror. Doce relatos sobre el mal …

Review of 'Un lugar soleado para gente sombría' on 'Goodreads'

Los he leído más como viñetas que como cuentos, porque la mayoría terminan de forma más bien abrupta. Supongo que por aquello de jugar con el fuera de campo, porque lo que te imaginas puede ser peor que lo que te cuentan. A veces es efectivo y a veces no tanto. Aun así los he disfrutado mucho, Enríquez es una maestra de introducir lo escalofríante en la cotidianidad. Como en sus libros anteriores, lo terrorífico nace de lo real: la dictadura argentina, desigualdades sociales, machismo, violencia obstetrica, traumas transgeneracionales... no sé cómo lo hace, pero te cita a Taylor Swift en un cuento sobre el éxodo rural forzado y funciona. No he leído nada de ella que me haya dejado indiferente.

Review of 'Priory of the Orange Tree' on 'Goodreads'

I wish I had this book when I was 14. Dragons and lesbian knights, what a combo! I was hooked at first, the worldbuilding and the diversity of characters is a plus, even if it got a bit repetitive as it went on. Definitely worth it to soothe the queer nerd teen who didn't see herself reflected in all the fantasy she read.

Carmen Maria Machado, Carmen Maria Machado: Her Body and Other Parties (Paperback, 2017, Graywolf Press)

In Her Body and Other Parties, Carmen Maria Machado blithely demolishes the arbitrary borders …

Review of 'Her Body and Other Parties' on 'Goodreads'

Both haunting and mesmerising. I love how Machado uses the weird (and sometimes the eerie, wink-wink Mark Fisher) to introduce topics of complex emotional resonance (i.e. identity, desire, power). This is what I want from all my speculative fiction: to explore the boundaries of the familiar, to peek into the liminal spaces between reality and the supernatural, to be challenged into confronting my own fears. Some of these stories will stay with me for a long while I think.

Carmen Maria Machado: In the Dream House (Hardcover, 2019, Graywolf Press)

For years Carmen Maria Machado has struggled to articulate her experiences in an abusive same-sex …

Review of 'In the Dream House' on 'Goodreads'

This book got under my skin and won't let go. Sure it's moving, devastating, witty, but honestly reading it is such a particular experience that words run short.

Something I specially liked: obviously it's a memoir but it yanks you from one genre to another (i.e. from horror to comedy). It couldn't work in any other way. The shifts keep you on your toes; they reflect the uncertainty of an abusive relationship while offering a sense of hope in a harrowing journey.

And the structure is so smart! Each chapter-vignette, each quote and footnote and heading are bricks to build a new canon. Because the author couldn't find a context in which to make sense of her experience, she created one herself (while gifting us with a much-needed precedent). No more "archival silence".

None of this makes it hard to follow or takes you away from the story. The writing …