My Review: ⭐️⭐️⭐️/ 5
I chose this horror/thriller as my August Book of the Month after seeing all the hype for it. Mario just lost his daughter to leukemia and his wife Melisa leaves him soon after. In debt and in despair, he takes on local hit jobs from his friend Brian to make ends meet and in a way, take out his anger on those that deserve it. Mario takes on one more near- suicidal mission to steal a Mexican drug cartel’s cash shipment with the help of Brian and Juanca. The pay off: $200,000 each – enough for him to start over and hopefully win back Melisa.
The writing is gritty and you really feel Mario’s despair as he is trying to overcome the depression and anger of losing his daughter and wife, blatant racism for being “brown” in America, and the inequality of the healthcare system. Though it is in the horror genre, the violence and descriptive dismemberment is not my cup of tea. I enjoyed the mix of supernatural elements, and I wish there was more of that. Parts of the book felt slow and I found myself distracted. Overall, the story is well written and I liked most of it, but personally the torture/extreme violence was not for me.
TW: extreme violence, dismemberment, drug use
The Tiny Bibliophile 