Goddess of Filth

Goddess of Filth by V. Castro is a creative take on a possession story that flips the script on the genre. Lourdes and her friends have a séance for fun, but much to their surprise something answers when they call out. Goddess of Filth uses familiar tropes found in previous possession stories and inverts them into a story about Chicana empowerment. I loved seeing the representation of a culture and experiences not seen often enough in horror literature. It has violence, sex, the supernatural, and more! The book deals with culture, gender, and sexuality as major themes, and in some ways it was fairly critical of Christianity. As a result some readers may find this book a bit unpleasant, but perhaps sometimes feeling discomfort can be a good thing and lead consideration of challenging topics? I found many aspects of this book to be highly compelling. With that said, in some ways this novella seemed underdeveloped. The prose sometimes seemed stilted, oddly formal and simplistic, and various elements of the narrative just didn't work for me. I didn't get a strong sense of all the characters, and thus the arc of some of the characters seemed disjointed while others were utterly forgettable. Although I really enjoyed the concept of this book, I found it's execution to be disappointing. Overall I rate this book ⭐️⭐️⭐️