You know what they say: before you embark on a journey of revenge, dig two graves. One for your enemy and one for yourself. 

 

Life in Puerto Rico is never easy. It’s life in a liminal state. You’re technically American, but Americans never treat you like you’re one of them, and since you’re an American colony you’re not free to do as you please, either. Somewhat like living in a small town, you grow up either never wanting to leave or clamoring to. 

 

Gabe and his friends are as tight as blood. You come for one of them, you come for all of them. Even though Puerto Rico is filled with grief, pain, and ghosts, these boys suddenly have their childhoods shattered when one of their mother’s is brutally gunned down while at work one night. 

 

What if it were your mom? Of course they’ll all set out to take revenge on the people who dared to take a mother from her son too early. It just isn’t done. 

 

The hurricane about to swoop down on Puerto Rico shares a name with the deceased mom: Maria. It’s as large, powerful, angry, and hungry as the fury of these young men. 

 

It took me longer than usual to finish a book of this length because it was a heavy read, thematically. I could feel the weight of neo-colonialism’s effects on Puerto Rico’s people and environment. I felt my own guilt and complicitness in being an American safe and sound in California while Puerto Rico suffers year after year being treated like a developing country when they should be America’s 51st state or be allowed to be their own sovereign nation. I swallowed down how it felt to not understand sentences of the book because they were in Spanish and then sucked it up because I’m the non-native here. This book has sound and fury and I’m here for it, even if I had to split reading it into two chunks. 

 

The theme that stands out the most here is pride: When you lose something, what will you risk or give away in order to get it back? There’s also grief: parental loss, loss of friendship, loss of a beloved, loss of innocence, and a longing for what once was. Anger is spread out over this book for so many reasons. I could probably write a whole essay about the part anger plays in this book. Let’s not forget the hurricane itself, which brings destruction and leave behind devastation. 

 

In all of this you have these furious and damaged young men who have too little to look forward to and have had too much taken from them in their short lives. None of them think they have very much to live for except each other and none of them have too much hope or desire to leave the island they have a love/hate relationship with. It’s their home, heart, and prison. But it’s always better to go with the devil you know. 

 

I highly recommend this book. It’s gonna knock you out. 

 

I was provided a copy of this title by Netgalley and the author. All thoughts, opinions, views, and ideas expressed herein are mine and mine alone. Thank you. 

 

File Under: 5 Star Reads/Coming of Age/Found Family/Ghost Fiction/Murder Thriller/Paranormal Fiction/Paranormal Horror/Speculative Fiction