Mexican Gothic

Hmmm. A gothic tale of tragedy set in an old home on top of a hill with thrills that go bump in the night, sign me up! This should have been something I really enjoyed, but alas, it was pretty mediocre.

The tale begins as most in the genre do; someone is summoned to an old rickety home to spend some nights inside it and horror ensues, yadda, yadda, yadda. So, the initial pages were setup quite well. I enjoyed the exploration of culture and the initial meetings of characters. The personalities of the seemingly small town run the gamut from secretive to boisterous. Most seem unwilling to tell the truth or give any semblance of what might have gone on in or around the home in the past, and as you can imagine, it is some pretty messed up stuff.

I'll try and tip toe around this next bit, but the latter half is where it lost me. Certain buzzwords are used to explain concepts that require greater detail; some scenes of horror are incredibly repetitive; and after being through the proverbial meat grinder, the main character is seemingly keen on trudging through when a clear solution is quite evident. Now, I know this is horror and one has to suspend their disbelief a bit, but I found myself wanting a few more interesting set pieces or meaningful plot devices. It kind of meandered on towards the end.

Let's go into detail a tiny bit. The bathroom scene is a fairly obvious metaphor and was traumatic, but the will they, won't they that stemmed from it and the call backs to that particular scene were pretty egregious. The other plot device, without spoiling anything, is the Gloom buzzword. To me, it needed to be fleshed out a bit more, to germinate a bit more, place the Last of Us game plot in this setting and we would have fireworks. And last, but certainly not least, was the exposition. Once the info dump reared its ugly head, I was pretty much on the outs. It had that Twilight Zone feel, but the happenings were a bit too familiar and uninteresting. Oh, and the gore is definitely for shock value. It just didn't do anything for me.

I am an unapologetic horror fan and find symbiotic stories pretty fascinating. This book pulls from many themes of videogames, movies, and gothic tales before it, but, to me, it lacks that extra spark of creativity.