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.

Martínez's writing shows a deep understanding of being a woman going through life dedicated to her family, who is bound to destroy her. <i>"That's what family is, a place to stay, and food on the table and in return you're cooped up with a bunch of living relatives and another bunch of dead ones. All families keep their dead under the mattress, my mother used to tell me, it's just that we can see ours."</i> As the old woman tells her family's story, it is evident is has broken her down to the bare bones of herself while she works her life away to keep her family "values."

Martínez creates an intricate world revolving around a house in rural Spain that is so deep and reflective for the reader. I felt parts of my personality and soul seen through her work that I have never seen explained before. She writes, <i>"We hate what reminds us of ourselves,"</i> which is such a simple idea, but in regards to the context of the novel delves into the complex relationships of self vs. family, and nature vs. nurture.

I give this book five stars for the beautiful writing, haunting themes, and retrospectiveness when I reach the end.

I really love a good haunted house story, especially one that has allegorical merit. I was very drawn to the strong female characters and their immense suffering and resilience. I really enjoyed the alternating perspective, and the voices were differentiated enough to avoid confusion. I did get confused a bit by the timeline, and I honestly could have read more about the granddaughter and grandmother in the aftermath of “the incident.”

This is a haunted house story about inheritance. Not only do we inherit trauma, but we inherit resentment, grudges, reputations; we inherit ghosts. This novella is captivating right from the beginning. The story is told in a direct way, without pretense, and is written in an almost stream-of-consciousness style. The chapters jump between two different points of view, but the style, the feeling, feels the same, because the characters are reflections of one another, after all, contradicting each other even as they support each other, with equal parts loving tenderness and frustration. There isn’t a lot of story, per se, but rather a slice of life, an exploration of a perpetual haunting. The characters are really beautifully drawn, both our two narrators and all the others who intersect their lives. There is no lengthy exposition, just observation, and it really makes this story feel like a confessional, like bringing the reader in and whispering secrets you cannot unhear. There is a melancholy and an urgency, a condemnation of greed and gossip that rattles floorboards and throws pots and pans around the kitchen. It was a joy to read, really offering a feeling of transportation. It was also the perfect length. Spite and justice are twined together with barbed wire in this short story, and if it went longer I think it would have needed to find more narrative grounding. As it was, the story length and structure complemented each other, and was a lot of fun to read.

I also want to commend the translators, who did a wonderful job of ensuring this story had character and tone, a distinct style that complimented the story and I can only imagine did great service to the original.

(Rounded up from 3.5)

I want to thank the author, the publisher Harper, and NetGalley, who provided a complimentary eARC for review. I am leaving this review voluntarily.

Woodworm, translated from Spanish and told from the points of view of a mother and a granddaughter, tackles themes of class and gender through a short, haunting story. I thought the story was unique, and really liked the ending, but there were moments where it would take me a minute to catch on to who the narrator was in a chapter since both characters are unnamed.

Overall, worth the read and I can’t wait to read more books from this author!

Thanks NetGalley for the ARC.

this book is a stream-of-consciousness tale of grief, poverty, and spiritualism. the alternating perspectives between the grandmother and the granddaughter gave way to two different iterations of rural poorness marred by folktales and ominous religiosity. i would have preferred a bit more elements of haunting, as it feels like the more suspenseful elements were less developed in this text.