Set in modern-day rural Spain, Woodworm follows a grandmother/granddaughter duo and the house that haunts them. This is a short novel, easily read in a couple of hours, that adeptly tackles themes of generational trauma (the titular woodworm), class, coming of age, and revenge. It’s also very well translated from the original Spanish, easy for a foreign audience to read while maintaining the necessary cultural context for the setting and story.

As the narrators reveal their long and sordid family history, we begin to understand how multiple generations of women could arrive at the same breaking point, and how they are forever impacted by a series of terrible men (and women, but mostly men), even by the abuses they didn’t personally suffer. Thematically, this book killed it at every turn. It’s one of those rare reads that manages to successfully combine everything it includes; the Saints, the sombras, the female rage, the simultaneous distance and closeness we often have with our families. Everything felt intentional and nothing was too much.

Stylistically, Woodworm is all-tell no-show; a family history relayed to the reader by narrators who directly engage with you, but the prose is skillful enough that this wasn’t a negative. The book is immersive and has a very fun uneasy vibe throughout that a lot of horror is lacking, and it’s certainly visual enough to get away with the way it’s told. There are a few minor choices I didn’t care for, namely the frequent omission of commas in the granddaughter’s chapters, but I still enjoyed Layla Martínez’s prose. She has a very unique voice and a skill for storytelling.

As for stylistic downsides, unfortunately, there were a few. The author makes the perplexing choice to not only leave both of our narrators unnamed (this can be done well, and one of my favorite books features an unnamed protagonist, but Woodworm was not a good example of this), but also have them both discuss their mothers at great length, referring to them only as “my mother.” There were times when I couldn’t tell until maybe the third page of a chapter who we were supposed to be following at the moment because the only mentions would be “I” and “my mother”, which could have been referring to the grandmother’s daughter or the grandmother’s mother, both of whom were also unnamed. I ended up so lost by the end because I was desperately trying to keep track of four nameless related women without getting their threads confused, meanwhile, each chapter was revealing a new layer to the story, switching the perspectives back and forth.

Having multiple characters who could interchangeably be “my mother”, “my grandmother”, or “my great-grandmother” depending on the narrator absolutely broke me after a while. The grandmother has a mother and a grandmother, but the grandmother is also the grandmother of the granddaughter, the other protagonist, who has a mother and a grandmother and a great-grandmother. No, of course they shouldn’t have names; what could POSSIBLY be so confusing?? Especially with the untagged dialogue and the similar voices (the only noticeable distinction is that the granddaughter often says “cuz” instead of because), I really struggled, and overall, I’d say the ambiguity is what knocked this down to 3 stars.

Don’t get me wrong, I hate being spoonfed and I prefer when authors give you the pieces so you can do the work. It’s what I like about reading to begin with; I’m absolutely one of those aggravating lit fic people who enjoys analytic and thematic value more than is reasonable, and I like to think of myself as a fairly savvy reader. That is to say that I don’t want to admit this (mostly because I’m concerned it comes down to stupidity and/or missing something glaring on my part), but even after skimming back through the entire book twice, I still don’t understand the ending. Thematically? Sure, and I loved it. What actually went down? Not even a little bit. It’s not a thinker, it just didn’t make a lick of sense.

Overall, I would recommend this book for anyone who enjoys feminist/literary horror. It isn’t so much traditionally scary as it a thematic and character-based story, but it does both these things very well and intersperses lots of genuinely creepy moments, as well as highlighting how horrifying regular people can be on their own. I’ll be keeping an eye out for other titles from Martínez.

4 stars

This was a dark and fascinating book. It had a rocky start but once I understood what was going on (about 2 chapters in), it was a quick read.
It has some very heavy themes… generational trauma, revenge, love, hate and so much more.

Totally worth a read, it only took about 2 hours but was totally engrossed the whole time,

Phenomenal book aboht striking baxk. A nice horror with some very fun motifs! Thanks so so much for the arc