I think the stories in this one got stronger as it went along. My favorites, or the ones that stuck out to me and creeped me out the most, were The Refrigerator Factory and Different Colors Made of Tears. One thing Enriquez does incredibly well is body horror, and she goes all out in this collection. If you've liked her other short story collections, I think you'll like this one as well.

Thank you to NetGalley for an ARC of A Sunny Place for Shady People.

First, I love the title, and second, I love the cover.

I've never read any of the author's previous works before so I went into this with an open mind, hoping for dark, macabre, and dreary.

I was left with mixed emotions after reading this.

On the one hand, I liked some of the stories, the ghosts, the hauntings, the sorrow, anger, and regret the characters in these stories live with, are burdened with, and have to deal with for their mortal lives.

I wasn't spooked by any of the stories, but a few of them did creep me out.

On the other hand, I didn't like the author's writing style.

Is she against paragraphs? Is her editor?

So many of the stories had long, long paragraphs with no breaks in between. Is this deliberate? Part of her writing style?

It was distracting and made it hard to follow the narrative since my eyes had to keep tracking and moving across the page with no pauses.

Also, I was confused why one of the stories referenced the Elisa Lam case.

All the other stories related to Argentina and its locals and history, but why include a short story based on a true crime?

I didn't see the point, or at least, I didn't get the point.

Was it how the author wanted to honor the victim? That's not the vibe I got. The story didn't feel disrespectful but it didn't feel right, either.

I liked the theme of the stories but the writing style and format left much to be desired. I may try another book by the author. Maybe she's just not for me.

A doctor living near the city slums can speak with ghosts of violent crime victims. An Argentine journalist flies to Los Angeles to investigate an unsolved murder and confronts past losses. A woman contracts a bizarre facial paralysis seemingly related to her estranged mother’s suicide. A schizophrenic woman’s family returns to Argentina to cure her sexual obsession with some “invisible friends”. An incurably ill young woman and her emotionally unbalanced sister live in a town where the spirits of doomed women reappear as nightbirds. After surgery to remove a benign fibroid tumor, a woman wants it reinserted in her body. A depressed man and his boyfriend explore an abandoned detention facility and confront a torturous ghost from the past. A sadistic man whose wife left him inflicts pain on the couture dresses she abandoned, much to the terror of the women who buy them. A lonely makeup artist who thinks she is dying of cancer is visited by spirits of women who actually are. A woman haunted by a fatal secret she has kept since her youth is finally confronted by a ghost from the past. An urban couple spend time in a rural village and meet a local artist who is not what they imagined. Social workers on the streets of Buenos Aires encounter two mysterious children with black eyes and bad intentions.

So go the plots of the twelve stories in A Sunny Place for Shady People, the third collection of short fiction by Argentine author Mariana Enríquez to be translated into English. These tales follow a similar pattern to her first two books (Things We Lost in the Fire, The Dangers of Smoking in Bed) in the way they seek to combine macabre elements—horror, even—with pointed social commentary to tell very human stories in which there are seldom any winners. (Enríquez also wrote Our Share of Night, a lengthy novel exploring very similar themes, but producing powerful short stories seems to be her strong suit.) For the most part, however, the tales here offer a somewhat different mix of those elements, with the horrific aspects being less prominently featured in the narratives. In fact, unlike those earlier books in which horror was used as an obvious metaphor for the myriad social ills that beset the author’s country, here the unsettling elements seemed far more disconnected. Perhaps that is because Argentina’s Dirty War, in which so many citizens were “disappeared”, is now fifty years in the past and might not be as compelling of a theme to the present day reader.

On balance, I did enjoy reading some of these stories although I found the collection as a whole to be quite uneven and a little repetitive of Enríquez’ previous work. My favorite tales (“The Refrigerator Cemetery”, “Black Eyes”) came near the end, as I found most of the material in the front of the book to be largely forgettable, albeit well-crafted. I am not sure this is a fair way to judge a new book, but this one definitely suffers from a comparison to her previous efforts, which provided far more effective combinations of all the themes that make this author such a talented writer. And, without question, Enríquez can be a gifted storyteller, in terms of both her compassionate characterizations and the sublime prose she uses to capture everyday situations in creatively twisted ways. Finally, I was a little confused about the book’s title, which is also the name of the second story. It alludes to Somerset Maugham’s famous quote from over a century ago in which he referred to the French Riviera as “a sunny place for shady people”. That was a clever depiction of the social conditions in Monaco at the time, but it is hard to understand how it applies to any of these stories, which are about as far from being sunny as it gets.

Mariana Enriquez is the queen of grit, fear, and comfort. The contradictory feelings shine through in each of her works, but A Sunny Place for Shady People may be my favorite so far (which is saying a lot because Things We Lost in the Fire is a top 5 book of mine.) Each story is built with incredible prose and stunning translation, and a perfect length to involve the reader deeply, while leaving them with haunting images that won't soon vanish. I cannot wait to devour everything Enriquez writes in the future, as there's truly no talent quite like what she offers.

(2.5) I absolutely loved Enríquez’s last short story collection The Dangers of Smoking in Bed but this didn’t hit as hard for me. I found myself rushing through a lot of the stories and only a couple of them gave me the chills in the way the last collection did. I’d certainly recommend reading this if you’re a fan of her work but just don’t go in comparing it with the last one.

I wwant all of Enriquez' books in English, yesterday. Anotherunsettlingand brilliant collectionfrom this master of the form.

ways to describe this wonderful collection of short stories...

apathy, haunting, trauma, loneliness, haunted places, past sins, guilt, shadows, danger

Mariana Enriquez did not grab me with Our Share of Night last year, which I also had an arc of, as I found myself incredibly engaged for the first 100 pages, then losing steam. This is a nonissue in A Sunny Space for Shady People, as she sours in a short fiction format. She’s a spectacular writer, and she’s mastered the short form.

Mariana Enriquez is biting in her commentary, melancholy in her style, and engaging in her pacing. A wonderful collection of stories woven together by the fantastic and the paranormal.

Mariana Enriquez's books are always like alchemy to me—I don't know how she does it, I'm completely absorbed while feeling wildly rattled out of my body, and I never want to leave the strange, alluring world she creates. Enriquez will forever be an instant buy for me.

Oh boy... this book. There are, unfortunately, only two things I liked about this one: 1. the cover, 2. the book title. That's it.

I think these could've maybe been good, but the way the author chose to write them was, quite frankly, a little baffling to me. Each story starts up with some heavy build-up. It seems like there might be some themes that will be explored, but that's either quickly abandoned by some weird horror things that seemingly have no connection to the initial start of the story OR they wrap up so quickly as to be unsatisfying. Almost all the stories end right as what seems like the climax of the story is happening. Which, that's fine maybe once, but it happened far too often.

And I just quite didn't "get" most of the stories. I didn't understand exactly what the author was trying to do or whether or not the horror elements were trying to make any sort of commentary on the things the author was (maybe?) trying to say.

I especially had an issue with the author taking the Elisa Lam case and making a story out of it. Maybe there was a way to do that respectfully, but I don't think the author did. It just felt... wrong to me. While, retroactively, I can maybe see what connections the author was trying to make, I dont think they were done well.

Just a pretty weird and disappointing collection. Definitely not going to be trying from this author again.

I've never read Mariana Enriquez before and was delighted to have the opportunity to read this early. I'd seen her compared to Shirley Jackson and Carmen Maria Machado, and after reading this book, that feels right on to me.

These literary horror stories have a particular style that's difficult to describe. The narrative voice is very matter of fact and practical, describing bizarre events and disturbing images that linger past the stories themselves. There's a lot of body horror and a lot of social commentary, especially around gender and family. There are some beautiful moments and some "whoa, WTF?" moments. The prose is sometimes beautiful, sometimes plain, but always highly effective.

I loved a handful of these stories and liked almost all the rest; there was only one that really didn't work for me. For me that's quite a high hit rate; short story collections and anthologies almost always have at least a few misses.

I thought this collection was a little uneven in pacing; there were a few stories in the middle that slowed the whole book down for me and I ended up setting it aside for a week or two. I'm glad I picked it back up, though, because the remaining stories were very strong.

I will absolutely be reading more of Enriquez's work, especially her short fiction. I'd strongly recommend this to readers who like literary horror, are looking for something with a strong flavor, and aren't squeamish about body horror.

Highlights for me:
- My Sad Dead
- A Sunny Place For Shady People
- Different Colors Made of Tears
- The Refrigerator Cemetery

Thank you to Mariana Enriquez, Random House Publishing Group - Random House | Howarth, and Netgalley for generously providing me with an ARC for review.

Mariana Enriquez's "A Sunny Place for Shady People" is a perfect blend of social commentary where the darkest of horror pales to the actions of those around us or honestly even ourselves. If you enjoy fiction that encourages you to take a long look in the mirror, then you can't go wrong with this collection of short stories that captivate, encourage, warn, and chill!

Mariana Enríquez's work never fails to captivate me. This book features moments of well-crafted horror and presents a compelling social critique, which I found to be one of its strongest points. The collection feels like a continuation of her previous anthologies. The style is unmistakably her own, and she revisits familiar themes such as social marginalization, the ghosts of the dictatorship, and pagan cults. For fans of her earlier works, this will likely be a positive, offering more of what they loved.

What stands out about Enríquez's work is her ability to make the everyday literary. The sources of horror in her stories often stem from our own failings and the social issues that need addressing. The supernatural scenes that evoke feelings of suffocation and adrenaline are rooted in tangible, everyday issues like gender violence, social indifference, collective amnesia, silence, lies, secrecy, and economic changes that impact people's lives. She captures the popular sentiment and the essence of life in Argentine neighborhoods.

I really enjoyed this and am now interested in her other books! This one reminded me of The Twilight Zone based on the overall imagination/mystery/horror and the way each story left you thinking and intrigued. I enjoyed each story individually!

As someone who read and loved Enriquez's previous story collections (Things We Lost in the Fire and The Dangers of Smoking in Bed), this one was sadly quite the letdown. Save for the last few stories, I was severely underwhelmed by this collection, which seemed like more of a collection of recycled material from previous stories + Enriquez's novel Our Share of Night.. If you enjoyed this, then I recommend checking out the other two collections I mentioned, as well as OSON (which I had my issues with, but at least it was thoroughly original).

Mariana Enriquez's "A Sunny Place for Shady People" is a darkly captivating and intricately woven tale that brilliantly showcases her talent for blending the macabre with the deeply human. Set against the vivid backdrop of an eerily sunny locale, Enriquez crafts a narrative that is as unsettling as it is compelling.

Enriquez's storytelling is nothing short of masterful. Her ability to create an atmosphere that is both bright and foreboding is a testament to her unique voice in contemporary literature. The sunny setting, juxtaposed with the shady characters that inhabit it, creates a tension that grips readers from the very first page.

The characters in "A Sunny Place for Shady People" are richly developed, each with their own secrets and complexities. Enriquez delves into the dark recesses of human nature, exploring themes of deceit, ambition, and the lengths people will go to in order to protect their own shadows. Her nuanced portrayal of these morally ambiguous figures makes for an engaging and thought-provoking read.

Enriquez's prose is both evocative and precise, painting a vivid picture of the setting while also delving deep into the psychological landscapes of her characters. The plot is meticulously crafted, with each twist and turn adding to the overarching sense of suspense and intrigue. Her ability to blend literary elegance with gripping narrative makes this novel a standout.

"A Sunny Place for Shady People" is a brilliant addition to Mariana Enriquez’s body of work. It is a novel that stays with you, its haunting beauty and complex characters lingering in your mind long after you’ve turned the last page. For readers who appreciate a blend of psychological depth, atmospheric tension, and literary excellence, this book is an absolute must-read. Enriquez has once again proven herself to be a master of contemporary fiction.

This book rocked. There are so many factors that are rare to find in a short story collection that this one absolutely nails. Every story was great as a standalone and to the overall collection. And what really floored me was Maria’s ability to pull you into a story so quickly, and so fully. I felt just as attached to the characters in her short stories as I did the characters in her novel despite only spending a few pages with them. I enjoyed this book SO much, and can’t wait to read it again.

Thank you for the ARC NetGalley, I’ll be preordering this ASAP. You’ll want this on your shelf.

As usual, very engaging writing from Enriquez - full of dread and imaginative detail. I had to put it down at one point because it got too horrific, which is awesome for a horror fan like me! I took my time reading it because I like to sit and think about all aspects of her stories in context of their setting and social commentary. Some stories blended together a bit, but overall I really enjoyed this collection, and I would pick it up again or recommend it to any horror reader.

This was a incredible collection of short stories. I’ve never read the authors other works before so I wasn’t sure what to expect exactly but I thoroughly enjoyed this. The writing was excellent.

Thanks to Random House | Hogarth and NetGalley for this digital ARC of Mariana Enriquez's short story collection 'A Sunny Place for Shady People.'

Even though she'd previously been know for short fiction, I discovered Mariana Enriquez via 'Our Share of the Night' a gargantuan masterpiece spanning decades and realities so I was delighted and intrigued to read her forthcoming short story collection.

The same themes that ran through 'Our Share of the Night' are prevalent throughout this collection - Argentina (her history and society), body horror (sometimes extreme), strong and vulnerable women, ghosts and hauntings, and the eliciting of extreme discomfort.

There are no tidy endings in any of these stories but I don't think you could expect any, given the subject matter and the author. I would prefer her long fiction over these short stories but I still very much enjoyed this collection.