This perfectly disturbing book fit a lot of rage and dread into an impressively short page count. The frequent shift in POV was a bit difficult to follow at times, but I think this actually added to the bizarre and repeating themes of the story.

This was a unique horror novella told from the alternating perspectives of two unnamed narrators (Grandmother and granddaughter) living in a haunted house who find themselves in center of the spotlight following a young boy's disappearance. I appreciated the mystery element and overall supernatural atmosphere, where one can truly feel the shadows lurking in the darkness extend their reach deep inside the two characters. More than your average horror, this story is additionally an exploration of generational trauma, class, sexism, and feminine rage.

While the book was thematically important and intriguing, I found it to be structurally lacking as it took a few chapters to fully grasp the identity of the narrator since it is not explicitly stated nor are chapter titles provided. Moreover, there was little distinction between the two women's voices as they were written in similar styles. I also felt that their histories and internal dialogues were too on the nose at times and a bit repetitive as the story progressed.

With all that being said, I did like the ending with its full circle moment of sorts, at least based on my interpretation. I believe this story may work for some readers more than others, especially for fans of atmospheric, creepy, short reads!

Thank you to Netgalley and Two Lines Press for the digital copy!

wow. what an unexpected read. this was so good. A little bit haunted house, a little bit fever dream, and a little bit social commentary.

The story alternates POV with each chapter between grandmother and granddaughter. Both go unnamed so it did get confusing just a little bit but you're able to sort it out after a paragraph or two so it didn't bother me too much.

I read this as an eBook but I definitely want to get a physical copy for my shelf and give this a reread soon.

one of my favourite quotes:
“Those suck-ups in the village stopped talking to us, as if whoever received the most pats on the head from the master would magically stop being a dog.”

read this if you enjoy, haunted houses, sentient houses, fever dream prose, witchcraft, revenge, curses, generational trauma, multiple POV.

Thank you to Two Lines Press and Netgalley for sharing a digital copy, as always opinions are my own.

Really great writing here. The story sucks you in and refuses to let go. It’s a simple tale but very effective. Creepy and unsettling. I hope the author writes more fiction.

This is the translation of the novel Carcoma by Layla Martínez. It takes place in Spain though it could very easily have been Mexico or any other place where those who live in poverty alongside those who distrust and look down on them (yet need them so they can be rich [read: the oppressed] along with a constant and overt misogyny. Okay, that’s pretty much everywhere. This is one of three novels I’ve been reading that involved people, mostly women, barely surviving, which makes it hyper real in some ways.

It is a short novel that is both raw and visceral. Martínez wrote it with a viciousness and power and an almost demonic anger (despite the saints and angels) that is reflected via some truly intense female characters. This book has a unique style both in the writing and in the narrative, in which you will find a lot of criticism and social denunciation. Add to that the folklore, the supernatural tone, and the excessive hatred of the women for there position in life, as well as the things that compel them to do what they do, and you will find yourself cheering them on. Definitely a satisfying read.

Layla Martinez is a fresh voice I desperately needed.
The way emotions are woven through the fabric of the story and slip through the setting are magical.
While there might not be much of a plot, the central event this novella revolves around grows from a very visceral place. Details bring clarity, which bring horror.
I hope more of her work gets translated, and that she dives fully into novels in the future. I’f she doesn’t hold back, she could write something phenomenal.

A gothic Spanish folktale of family, class, and generational abuse. I took my time with it, and I'm so glad I did. This one will bounce around in my head for a while.

Absolutely lush, gorgeous language. I can only imagine how much harder this would've hit in Spanish, but the translator did a magnificent job. The way Martinez engages with generational trauma through the lens of horror is masterful. Brilliantly written. I'll be thinking about this one for a long time.

Obsessed with this book and read it in one sitting. The writing was absolutely gorgeous and I can’t even imagine how much harder it hit in Martínez’s native language, Spanish. Still a massive shoutout to the translators that worked on this one because the writing was lyrical and I loved every second of it.

At 144 pages, I just wasn’t quite ready for the end of this one. I felt that I had been in the house with the two women for so long, yet no time at all. At its core, Woodworm is a book on female rage, generational trauma, and the things we drag around with us in the dark.

I cannot recommend this one enough for fans of horror, poetry, hauntings, witches, and powerful women.

A couple of quotes that made me go “whoa.”

💭 “Those suck-ups in the village stopped talking to us, as if whoever received the most pats on the head from the master would magically stop being a dog.”

💭 “True, it was a small and squirming power, a sort of slug that slipped through your fingers if you weren’t careful and left a frothing trail of slime in its wake….”

**Thank you to NetGalley and Two Lines Press for the eARC of this title!**

This is not a traditional story, so readers will want to go into it understanding the style. It’s about a young woman who is suspected of intentionally losing or hurting a kid she nannies, but that makes it sound like a mystery or thriller and it’s not. It’s more literary and slow. The thematic content is most important.

The story alternates between the POV of a grandmother and her granddaughter. They reflect on the past, the men in their lives, the rich family in town, and their weird house.

Very strong themes of sexism and class. There are some real incisive and well observed passages that I loved. But a lot of the story is told in summarization, and there were stretches I was quite bored by.

I liked the idea of the house as haunted or kind of paranormal, but the story didn’t focus on that very much in the end. That piece felt like it fizzled.

Interesting concept here, and I liked some of the writing quite a lot, but I was disappointed in other ways.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC.

The author, Layla Martinez, bound the book with her own spells to breathe life into it. 'Woodworm' narrates the events in a house inhabited by spirits, where two women reside. It's a gothic tale that immerses the reader in the injustices these women have faced in society.

This is a blend of magical realism and dark folklore that can captivate readers of all kinds. It explores supernatural themes like witchcraft without veering into the realms of either cozy or terrifying. These elements are not the main focus of the book.

Intriguing and unnerving at times, the ghosts haunting the women's house reflect generational trauma. The true horrors of this book lie in the social prejudices the town inflicts on women. The narrative follows four generations of women who have been wronged by gossip and men, revealing societal rules that inhibit women's freedom.

While the story shifts between different perspectives in each chapter, the writing style remains consistent, making it hard to discern the change in narrator, which leads to a weak character development. Some chapters are told from the grandmother's perspective, while others come from the granddaughter's. The narrative styles the dialogues within the paragraphs, a method that complements the eerie atmosphere of the story.

A dark book that will be loved by those seeking a short tale of spirits, without leaving them trembling in horror. Instead, they will be captivated by a strange house and its inhabitants.

I’m grateful with NetGalley, the author and the publisher for the opportunity of letting me read this before its publication.

Taut and tense, a grandmother and her granddaughter both tell the story of their haunted house and how it led to two disappearances in their neighborhood. Exploited by their rich neighbors as servants and for their skills at herbal remedies and hexes, it is also a revenge story in the face of misogyny and classism. As with most works in translation, I look forward to reading this in its native Spanish.

WOODWORM by Layla Martinez
Page Count: 124 pages
Publisher: Two Lines Press
Other Books I Enjoyed by This Author: Debut novel
Affiliate Link: https://bookshop.org/a/7576/9781949641592
Release Date: May 2nd, 2024
General Genre: Ghost, horror, feminist, women, literary, haunted house
Sub-Genre/Themes: cursed, haunted, generational trauma, human trafficking, domestic abuse, marriage, haunted house, motherhood
Writing Style: spare, compelling, fairytale/folklore storytelling vibes
What You Need to Know: Domestic violence, human trafficking
My Reading Experience: The pages just fly by. I was immediately absorbed into this haunting tale of generations of women bound by the geography of this cursed house built by a man trapped forever in its walls. Oh, the symbolism!
Perfect for fans looking for cultural vibrancy and folklore
Witches and magical realism
Revenge
rural small town legends
gothic curses on families
mothers and daughters
ghosts
and fairytale-like, fever-dream prose
Final Recommendation: Woodworm is one of my favorite books I've read this year. It is the story of cursed women living in a cursed house that keeps them locked away together for generations. I loved the way it reads like a dark fairytale but hits the guts with social commentary and universal truths.
Comps: Hurricane Season by Fernanda Melchor, Fever Dream by Samanta Schweblin, When I Sing, Mountains Dance by Irene Solà

The only thing I love more than a haunted house story is a story about women getting their revenge, and Woodworm is both!

The creepy vibes here are everything to me. I love when a book lets itself be weird for the sake of being weird, without the need to explain why or how anything works. The story is told in delicious little fragments, trailing you all over the place until you’ve forgotten where you started. Jolts of recognition bolted through me when the story wove back around to the main plot, because I got so wrapped up in the world building that I lost myself in it.

I liked the harsh, ugliness of the setting and the characters. Nothing is sugarcoated and everything is awful. Maybe things will never systemically change, but it’s the little justices that keep us going.

Woodworm didn’t engage me and I’ll try to explain why. It’s written in a first person voice I didn’t believe in, and by this I mean I could always feel the author behind it, choosing what to reveal and what not to reveal in a way that didn’t feel organic to the character. Also, there is a lot of backstory and narrative summary and these weren’t engaging enough to pull me through or leave me interested in finding out more. I was a little bored throughout.

Excellent translation of a fresh take on folk horror. Martinez drops you into a fully formed world and whisks you along with a distinct narrator's voice to a satisfyingly creepy ending.

Thank you to Netgalley for the ARC!

The writing and prose in this was beautiful. I had a little trouble at first keeping up with the perspective shifts, but it was really well written and paced.

I did not finish reading this story (making it to the 36% mark), because my mental state can't seem to handle the subject matter. Though what I had read was very well written, and I did like the characters.

The one thing that had confused me was the chapters gave no clear indication of whose point of view the story was being told from and so a few pages could be read before i had to visualize the grand-daughter instead of who I was visualizing (the grandmother).

If I finish reading this at a later date, I will come back to revise this.

I want to thank NetGalley for the ARC of “Woodworm” by Layla Martinez in exchange for an honest review. I am voluntarily leaving this review.

“Woodworm” has such a simple premise but is written so beautifully and integrates so much into the story that it was an amazing read for me. Describing this book as just “a haunted house story” doesn’t sit right with me because it’s more than that. This story explores the ideas of inheriting generational trauma and trying to escape it without having the resources to do so. This is a dual POV; we get the story from the granddaughter’s view as well as from the grandmother’s perspective.

Usually I am not a huge fan of dual narratives, and I dreaded it in this book simply because there was no designation as to which character is narrating, as there are no names; the characters simply refer to the roles (grandmother, granddaughter, etc). However it really added to the story because Grandmother has seen the way this house affected her mother, herself, her daughter, and her granddaughter. We see how Grandmother is trying to combat the evil that has taken root in her granddaughter, while she's also having to reconcile the fact that no other women in the family has been able to combat the evil (with perhaps the exception of her daughter). On the other hand, Granddaughter knows of the evil of the house/the curse of her family and still thinks escape is possible and that one day she’ll no longer have to bear the burden of her family. This book deals with poverty, classism, spirituality and grief in such a unique way, and you can’t help but root for the women in this story even if they are “evil”.

Something that I really did not like about this book was that in the beginning it was confusing when switching POVs simply because there was no designation and no names, and their roles overlapped slightly depending on the history of the family (they were both granddaughters and daughters, they both had grandmothers and mothers). Another thing I struggled with was the dialogue. None of the dialogue in “Wormwood” is tagged, and conversations happen in paragraph, making it somewhat difficult to keep track of who is talking to whom.

Overall, I thoroughly enjoyed this even if it was a bit difficult to follow. 4/5 stars.

I really enjoyed it! It weaves together various facets: politics, injustice, vengeance, wrongdoing, social class... These elements are really raw and grip you till the end.