The Haunting of Alejandra by V. Castro

Synopsis:

In The Haunting of Alejandra, Alejandra no longer knows who she is. To her husband, she is a wife, and to her children, a mother. To her own adoptive mother, she is a daughter. But they cannot see who Alejandra has become: a woman struggling with a darkness that threatens to consume her.

Nor can they see what Alejandra sees. In times of despair, a ghostly vision appears to her, the apparition of a crying woman in a ragged white gown.

When Alejandra visits a therapist, she begins exploring her family’s history, starting with the biological mother she never knew. As she goes deeper into the lives of the women in her family, she learns that heartbreak and tragedy are not the only things she has in common with her ancestors.

Because the crying woman was with them, too. She is La Llorona, the vengeful and murderous mother of Mexican legend. And she will not leave until Alejandra follows her mother, her grandmother, and all the women who came before her into the darkness.

But Alejandra has inherited more than just pain. She has inherited the strength and the courage of her foremothers—and she will have to summon everything they have given her to banish La Llorona forever.

Edition:

ARC via Net Galley

Trigger Warnings:

My Thoughts:

V. Castro has a very distinctive style of writing that I really enjoy. Her prose is accessible, and she tends to focus on things that interest me deeply – the experiences of women, Mexican culture/lore, and vengeful goddess-types. The Haunting of Alejandra definitely has all of that and more.

I like Alejandra a lot – I think that she is living a life not so very different from uncountable women. She is caught in an endless loop of domestic drama with a wooden, crappy-ish husband, kids that exist, etc. I really enjoyed that the narrative – at least in the beginning – is mostly Alejandra’s internal dialogue. It keeps the reader constantly slightly off balance because we don’t know how reliable a narrator Alejandra really is. We have only her word, her interpretation of things to go on.

But later in the book, the narrative splits off. So we are no longer relying solely on Alejandra’s personal perception of reality. And this splitting point is, in my opinion, where The Haunting of Alejandra really shines. The beginning stuff is good, but everything that comes after that shift is incredible.

This story has all of the tragedy you might expect (as well as a heady dose of gore you might not have expected) in a La Llorona tale, but it also has some deeply empowering messaging going on.

Rating:

I love V.’s intrinsic ability to tell a compelling, empowering, disturbing story with incredible finesse. The Haunting of Alejandra is every bit as beautiful as it is disturbing. You’ll stay thinking about this one for a while.

The Haunting of Alejandra
By V. Castro
Del Rey
ISBN: 9780593499696
Expected Publication: April 18, 2023
272 Pages
Hardcover, E-book, Audio