This one caught my eye for a myriad of reasons - grisly body horror, parents dealing with the loss of a child, monsters, queerness - and it delivered on all fronts! It starts with a mother cutting a piece of her dead son’s lung out, shit unravels from there, and that’s really you need to know.

Córdova’s style is an absolute dream to read, the story unfolds at the perfect pace, enough tension and drama coupled with reflections on love and loss. I think I would have preferred it if we cycled through the four narrator’s in turn, a chapter each, rather than four blocky sections from each. It would have been cool to hear from everyone at different stages of the story, especially M. As it is, we don’t get the full picture of how, for example, Magos feels when M is 18, since her section of the narration is at the very beginning.

That aside, it’s still a hugely engaging novel. M is a great character, and making us feel for a bloodthirsty monster in an almost endearing way is a feat of characterisation. A beautiful and bloody meditation on grief.