When I asked my followers to pump me up for this book, I didn’t necessarily get what I asked for. But, in the end, I found this book was much better than some had lead me to believe (although, in one case, the reader had specifically disliked the narrator). 

I’m not much of a horror reader, and I had seen A LOT of mixed reviews of this book, so I was surprised to see it in Canada Reads. Despite a very slow start, I ended up having to read most of the book in two days to get it back to my library, and I was surprised to find that it was actually a fairly easy feat!

We follow Noemi to a rural English estate in the Mexican mountains, after her cousin, recently married to one of the inhabitants, sends an unhinged letter. Once there, Noemi struggles to uncover what is happening to her cousin, while navigating a tight-lipped and racist English family. The book certainly had spooky elements, and lives up to its gothic name.

While being far outside what I normally read, I ended up mostly liking Mexican Gothic. It was hard to read with so much baggage going in, and I wonder if I would have liked it even more without being hyper aware of some of the plot elements. I knew, for example, that fungi played a big part of the story as EVERY review references it, so rather than subtle foreshadowing, the many, MANY references to fungi leading into the exposition of that plot point felt like getting beat around the head with a fungus. 

I think I would maybe recommend this book for a beach read as I did enjoy it in the end. While it does have some deeper elements, and rather obvious allegories to colonialism, I personally didn’t find it thought-provoking or very stimulating (beyond the spookyness, that is). But, as always, if it sounds good, go for it! Many people absolutely love it!