Thank you to NetGalley and Lanternfish for the arc. I’ve been having a string of disappointing reads lately, and unfortunately this book only added to it.

My most glaring complaint: nothing in this book serves a purpose. The tense changes, the POVs, the “romances.” I just sat there screaming “WHAT IS THE POINT” on multiple occasions; nothing felt necessary. Just because you can do something doesn’t mean you should. It feels forced, and at worst it felt like a sloppy attempt at recreating a Simon Jimenez book, except in Jimenez’s books his literary choices actually have meaning and a purpose. As a result, this book often seemed incomprehensible. No payoff was satisfying, including the ending. I had no connection to this book or its characters at all. It just all fell flat, and like a block of text that had no idea what it wanted to be.

The author also made choices that harmed my impression of the characters and their characterization. We simply don’t need the Sheriff’s POV. I would have preferred the police as a looming presence. I do see it as an attempt to educate and humanize, which would have worked if the author went about it a different way instead of forcing us inside this random man’s head. Maybe one of the mcs could have had a family member in the police, maybe Samuel is a retired cop, or maybe some mcs had some type relationship with one. It does not help the story having a POV from this rando. Julian’s POV does not help the story either. It would have benefitted the story more to keep Julian as a mysterious and ominous presence instead of immediately clearing the veil. Samuel’s POV would have served much more of a purpose imo. And again, the tense changes add absolutely nothing. As such, I don’t give a shit about any of these characters at all.


Also, the entire plot and premise of this book was different from what I expected from the synopsis. Going into this I was excited to read what I thought was a Latino/Mexican weird and possibly eldritch western. It instead focused on Brujeria and one leathery old fuck who I didn’t care about at all. I would have much preferred the fantasy weird western, with a razzle dazzle of Brujeria, but definitely not what we were served here.

To sum it all up: bruh