Alejandra’s struggles aren’t pretty but they’re also not her only option, and seeing this in literature is so important. The women of her books come together to face darkness and light, offering a basis of community so often missing, not only from Horror, but from stories of struggling mothers as well.
It’s a further testament to Castro’s ability to not only craft terrifying horror but also breathtaking drama, with gorgeous focus on character. This novel plays with classic tropes from narratives like IT by Stephen King, but takes everything even further by widening its scope and encompassing a kaleidoscopic range of experiences, complexities, and emotions that King WISHES he could utilize. An unflinching look at motherhood, depression, and generational trauma, while utilizing its central creature as a boogeyman-as-structural-system, not pitting Alejandra against a simple supernatural antagonist, but structures of white supremacy and puritanical control as well.
Seeing an author you love at what feels like a height of their powers is truly heartening and Castro is firing on all cylinders with this one. When she starts to witness apparitions of what she believes to be La Llarona, her journey for understanding unearths a story much older than her family, and her own soul. Struggling with deep depression, she tries to care for her three children and aloof husband as well as she can, but it feels like there’s such a darkness in her. It’s been a delight to see her writing grow stronger with each book and I feel as though it’s most evident here in #TheHauntingOfAlejandra.Īlejandra is a mother who feels as though she’s reaching the end of her rope. Coming into contact with her work a couple years ago was completely mind-blowing, not only due to her prose, but the way she harnesses folklore to tell deliciously vengeful diasporic tales. I think by now it’s evident how much I adore the work of. Still reeling from this one and I’ve had like a week to process.
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