What I’ve Been Reading Lately…

You Exist Too Much, Zaina Arafat

You Exist Too Much is set in various places around the world in modern day, including D.C., New York City, the Midwest, and Palestine, and deals with complicated themes such as mother-daughter relationships, eating disorders, and self-love within relationships. The reader meets the protagonist amidst a breakup fueled by her own sabotage, after which she decides to check herself into a rehab facility for what she terms ‘love addiction’. Although the rehab facility is rather dumpy and the therapies used are sketchy at best, the protagonist decides to make the best of it, trying to heal not only herself, but also the scarred relationship she has with her mother. Upon leaving rehab she falls directly into what seems to be old habits, although the work she has done helps her to recognize them and step out of their path, and leads the book a hopeful ending for both the protagonist and her mother.

Mexican Gothic, Silvia Moreno-Garcia

I have been wanting to read Mexican Gothic for quite some time, and it did not disappoint. A Gothic novel in the speculative fiction genre, it follows the story of Noemí, a young woman who has sent by for by her ill cousin to an ancient manor set in the hills of Hidalgo, Mexico. Thinking that her cousin might actually need a psychiatrist due to the content of the letter she received, Noemí soon discovers that the things her cousin claimed in the letter—terrible nightmares, voices in the walls, and ghosts in the hallways—are true, and sets out to break her cousin free from the evil rooted in the house and the family that lives there. The evolution of Moreno-Garcia’s work can be quite clearly seen from some of her previous novels that I have also read; from the upper class familial setting in The Beautiful Ones to the backdrop of Mexico in Gods of Jade and Shadow, Mexican Gothic combines these aspects, and of course continues on with Moreno-Garcia’s use of strong female protagonists.

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