I read an ARC copy The Haunting of Alejandra from NetGalley and Random House Publishing Group-Ballantine in exchange for an honest review. Thank you for this opportunity.

I loved the atmosphere and reflection in this book. With my migraine, I can’t say that I always was able to completely follow how everything connected with all the flashbacks, but let’s give an overview of the plot.

Alejandra’s life as a mother and wife has left her feeling depressed and suicidal. There appears to be voices and hallucinations urging her to follow through with the worse of her thoughts, but her husband has moved her away from the mother she just found and any family she had before. All she has is him and the children who don’t seem to appreciate what she does in their lives. When she visits a therapist, she starts exploring her family’s history. The pain passed from mother to daughter, the curse of La Llorona, of how colonialism and misogyny as driven them all to a watery grave, and she learns to find the strength and love that was in them and start fighting against what seems her family’s fate.

The book primarily follows Alejandra as she deals with a husband who refuses to listen to her needs, often looking down on her reaching out to seek her birth mother, or her seeking out a job for herself. His dismissiveness is almost over the top, but I wondered if it either was part of the curse or if it was part of his own curse, as the book hints there are more to be found in the world besides hers.

As the book continues, there are parts from the point of view, just snippets, of the curse, and how it sees her and the women that came before her. Especially after the first story of how it made a deal with the first woman who was suffering after being taken by an invader who was taking her against her will, and she wanted her daughter safe, but him to suffer as much as he had made her suffer.

Overall, I really loved the book. It was a great exploration of grief and how it affects people through generations and how it can’t just be put to the side. How it has to be confronted. If you’re looking for a gory, dark read that looks at how women have been treated, especially women with Alejandra’s ancestry have been treated through the years, then this is an excellent read.

Alejandra has everything she should want — a rich husband, three beautiful children, a nice home… and a demonic haunting? This was a new take on the legend of La Llorona that I really enjoyed. The parts of it that were done well were done really well. There were wonderful discussions of the nature of generational trauma, the causes and the cyclical nature of it, with particular importance placed on therapy and doing the healing work to break those cycles. I enjoyed Alejandra as a protagonist, watching her go from a terrified, haunted woman to finding her strength. I also greatly appreciated the chapters focusing on the women who came before her. Every single one of them had an important part to play in her story… their story really. Where it fell short for me was in the writing and the mythology. While I enjoy beautiful prose, the writing in this book was at times poetic to a fault, contributing nothing to the actual narrative, and then overly simplistic at other times. Additionally, the mythology of the story became a bit muddied towards the end of the book, leaving me wondering about the true nature of the monster. For those reasons I had to knock off a couple of stars, but it was otherwise a solid read.

I was so happy to receive this advance digital copy and for it to be my first ever to review from NetGalley.

This is a horror story of sorts, with generational trauma, historical flashbacks, but most importantly, resilience. The resilience of some very strong Mexican women 🇲🇽

Read for the spooky vibes and stick around for the genre-bending from @vlatinalondon 💖

This is scheduled to be released in April of 2023 but you can preorder now. I definitely recommend getting yourself a copy.

Thanks again to Ballentine, Del Rey, and Random house for this copy!

Alejandra is plagued by thoughts that her family would be better off without her in their lives. Her husband sees her as nothing more than a housewife and she is afraid that she's taking a toll on her children. Alejandra wants to do better and be better but, for some reason, can't find her way. In The Haunting of Alejandra, we go through generations of women in Alejandra's ancestry that have felt the same way and what they did... or didn't do... to conquer these feelings and learn about the demon behind the hurt.

I did not enjoy this book. I felt as though Alejandra was whiny and her talks with her therapist were too... scripted? I'm not sure what it is, but my therapy sessions have never been this enlightening. Maybe I need a new therapist. I gave this book two stars because I did like how the author went back through the generations to show that Alejandra was not alone, but I just can't get over my hatred for Alejandra and her attitude.

Thank you, NetGalley for the opportunity to read this book in exchange for an honest review.

A unique and creepy retelling of La Llorona. Prose wasn't quite my style, but I still enjoyed this book, overall.

First off, thank you to NetGalley and the publishers for the ARC of this story. Now, for my honest review.

This book was nothing like I expected, and somehow exactly what I needed. I found myself relating to Alejandra in so many facets of her life; a young mother who has lost herself in the more mundane aspects of life, someone recovering from an evangelical upbringing, someone trying to find pieces of her culture she feels on the outside of. I felt compelled by just the raw truth in her story and the stories of her ancestors. This book did not read like a novel so much as a fictional history of womanhood, family, identity, and the need we all have to battle our own demons. I was scared in parts, I cried in others, I even laughed a few times. The beauty of all of these women fighting something dark together felt very powerful.

My one reason for not giving 5 stars is that parts of the ending felt rushed. Without giving any spoilers, there were relationships I wish we had sat with for a longer period of time. I wanted to see more how alejandra moved through the world after everything she had been through.

This is not your typical horror novel, it is something bigger. It will stick with me for a long time.

So good!! I love reading stories about Mexican folklore. This was such a unique twist on the origins of La Llorona. It is also about a woman trying to find herself and save her children and future generations to come no matter the cost. I loved the spiritual aspects to this story; how trauma is passed on from generation to generation and how we must decide it stops with us. This is the tale of Alejandra deciding the suffering stops with her.

The Haunting of Alejandra is available April 18th, 2023.

Thank you to NetGalley and Random House Publishing-Ballentine for a digital review copy in exchange for my honest feedback.

This was such an incredible book, I could not put it down once I started reading it. There were so many important topics touched on, such as generational trauma, post-partum depression, and motherhood. I loved how the chapters were structured to show the reader the POV of Alejandra's maternal line as a way to understand where the entity of La Llorona began and how intertwined it was in their lives. I loved seeing Alejandra reconnect with her heritage that was lost and taken from her and how she really came into her own twoards the end of the book. The horror aspect of this book was so good (was a mixture of body horror and psychological), I got chills reading some of the chapters. I will most definitely be picking up a physical copy of this book once it comes out!

This was a book that I picked up at the right time. V. Castro created a character in Alejandra that I could fully relate to and became connected to. I didn't... like Alejandra, but I understood her.

I wouldn't call this book scary but had some very detailed, gory descriptions. I appreciated the Mexican folklore and how Castro showed the lasting impact of generational trauma. It was a nice way to tie tradition to what was happening in the current day.

I know this was the unedited version, and there were several places where a proofreader should visit. A few names were misspelled and a few other words, as well as continuity in the ages of the children. I also thought the dialogue felt clunky. The characters were speaking so formally that it did not feel believable to me. I really enjoyed the book, the dialogue just took me out of it a few times.

I love horror whether it is in movie or book form. I wasn’t aware of the La Llorona story until the American movie The Curse of La Llorona. I passed on that release and opted for the Guatemalan movie La Llorona (if you have access to Shudder, I highly recommend you watch this!) instead because I was told it was scarier and possibly more accurate with the legend. So that movie was my only knowledge of this story.

In The Haunting of Alejandra, the main character is being haunted by the ghost of La Llorona. But this book is much more than than a creepy ghost story. I don’t have any kids nor the desire to, but this book touched me deeply in ways I never expected. Its about breaking generational trauma which is a curse. It’s so powerful!

Thanks Netgalley for allowing me to read this book. Alejandra is going through some hard times in her life. She sees herself as a wife and mother. She goes to a therapist and learns more about her past which will help her make decisions. I liked this book.

Unfortunately, this book was really not for me. The writing style was juvenile, the husband felt like a caricature, and the horror was… not that horrifying.

Tbh I think this book needs another solid round of editing before it’s released. The dialogue (internal and external) was SO BAD — stilted and awkward. And the whole book felt like way too much tell, not enough show. Oof.

Thanks to Netgalley for the ARC. This was a DNF for me.

This is a great book, and I bet it will be really popular because it deals with a lot of issues we are coming to terms with as a society, namely generational trauma.

The writing is pretty smart, though I think some parts could have been further developed (more showing, less telling, as I tell my students). I found the husband character to be without a lot of redeeming qualities, and I struggled to understand how someone as strong as Alejandra would choose him as a mate. I mean, that was her arc, that she was meek, then grew in strength and was able to finally speak her piece. However, I just didn't buy it 100%. I think it was hard to see Alejandra as "strong" when she was not characterized by that before she started seeing Melanie... strength of character doesn't happen overnight. I also didn't really get the relationship between Alejandra and her kids. She tells me she cares a lot about them, but I didn't necessarily feel anything toward the kids.

And... aside from knowing they were a stereotypical judgmental Christian couple with 8 adopted children, I found the adopted mother and father to be as flat as the husband. There was also the "Dave" (I don't know his name) but the adopted brother thrown in for good measure... where did he come from? Why was he included?

I liked the relationships between Alejandra and Melanie and Alejandra and her birth mother. I found the conclusion of the book to be pretty good, and I definitely liked the vignettes. I was rooting for all of the women along this family line. I just thought further development might help me to feel something more for the characters, many of whom just fell flat for me. Including Alejandra at some points.

This book will seriously Haunt You To The MAX. A truly terrifying story that has roots in both history and culture, but brings something overall new to the genre.

Wow this book was incredibly unique, it's a horror book, but it is so much more and is really genre bending, and expanding!

A retelling of the La Llorona legend told through generational trauma, and battling our own demons, figuratively and literally. A story of familial and community love, of self care and living as our authentic selves.

It's got gore and incredibly creepy scenes that'll make your skin crawl, but it's also this inspiring and beautiful story of overcoming hardship and finding inner strength.

I definitely recommend this if you're a fan of horror, but also if you're a fan or multi-generational stories, and stories about strong women.

CW: gore, death of parent, body horror/trauma, death of child/miscarriage, suicidal thoughts

I enjoyed the premise of this book and how Castro depicted the generational trauma in Alejandra's family- haunting each woman in the blood line. It felt often felt obvious and a bit disjointed at times--- I wish that the La Llorona connection was more subtle and that some of the previous generations would have been referenced sooner (Flor's story was rad!).

Plot:
The narrative was my kind of story: heavy on the characterization rather than the plot. It was a deep dive into the protagonist, Alejandra, and her personal growth and journey. The catch that I loved? That the backdrop was gothic and mythic, embedded with Mexican folklore (particularly the the tale of La Llorona). A story predominantly about depression and generational trauma is important and timely, but it’s made even more palatable and engaging when told like a horror story. Though slow and redundant at times, the story is well worth a read if you like scary, deep, and visceral storytelling.

Characters:
Alejandra was relatable in many general ways - like her struggle with life’s overwhelming curveballs, or her grapple with her past. Even the ways I couldn’t personally relate to were important and inspiring, which is indicative of great character development. I think many people will find Alejandra’s portrayal to be genuine if not relatable.
Other characters didn’t stand out to me as much, and Matthew in particular seemed a bit one-dimensional. I wish there were more layers to some of these secondary characters, though I guess Alejandra is ultimately the only one who truly matters.

Writing:
I enjoyed the writing style; there were unique ways - such as time jumping and perspective switching - that were effective.
However, a lot of the messages Castro intended to convey - about life, work, marriage, family history - felt at times disjointed, no single one fully fleshed out.

Thank you to NetGalley for the ARC in exchange for an honest review!

This was such a unique and creepy retelling of La Llorona. I did struggle with the pacing of this book at first, it was a little slow for my taste, but it was worth it. This book kept me on edge throughout the entire thing. It also felt more than just your typical horror. The way this book explores generational trauma is something that really makes this worth the read.

I wanted to love The Haunting of Alejandra so bad, I was looking for something creepy and captivating, like the Scared to Death podcast but I just couldn’t get into.

As a new mom who dealt so much with PPD this book felt kind of triggering, I’m not far enough past my own depression and yearning for self harm to be okay reading something like this. I remember so vividly sitting in the shower myself wondering if my baby would be better off without me. I wish this book had come with some content warnings, due to the sensitive subject material I had to put it down.

In "The Haunting of Alejandra", V. Castro has pulled from Mexican lore to tell the store of a woman struggling with the demons of her present and her family's past.

Alejandra, our protagonist, seems to have the perfect life - a full time stay-at-home mom to three children, she and her family have moved to Philadelphia to support her husband's job change. Alejandra knows she should be happy, but she isn't; we get to see her daily struggles juggling her responsibilities as a wife and mother against the sacrifices she's made for her own desires and dreams. Things take a sudden turn for the worse, however, when she begins seeing visions of La Llorona, a woman from folklore passed down her family who murdered her own children and continues to haunt the women in their bloodline.

V. Castro's novel touches on a number of important and relevant topics that women, especially in a racial minority, continue to face to day: racism and sexism, even within your own family; developing and maintaining ones own identity; multigenerational trauma; the importance of therapy and mental health; and preserving ones own ethnicity and culture. Even though I'm not a mother, I truly empathized with Alejandra's situation and difficulties, and having to forfeit her own career in order to allow her husband to build out his. I also appreciated how Alejandra's therapist Melanie became a key character later in the novel, and was able to help her both in the short and long term.

A compelling and deceptionally short novel that I think many readers will enjoy when it's released in April 2023!