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This is a magical novel about processing grief, growing as people, and also realizing it‘s okay to revert back to something more primal, instinctive. I can‘t recommend it enough.

A truly original family drama/horror about a mother‘s unwillingness to leave her dead son behind and the monster she and her whole family create. An excellent read overall, though I would not recommend the audiobook, it was difficult to differentiate characters and the reading was not very expressive. 4.5â­�ï¸�

Halfway through. Borrowed from a friend. Really beautiful and interesting premise.

🖤🩸🖤

This novel explores how grief can develop a life of its own. We think we can hold onto it and tame it, but it's all-consuming. This aspect is beautiful, but the plot meanders too much for my taste. Also, someone really needs to give authors (especially dude authors) a book of female anatomy so they use the correct prepositions with the correct body parts. I almost chucked this one at the beginning based on this alone.

Just dropping in to complain about break being over and work eating into my reading time again. Tagged is one of the books I would like to make more progress on (70% in, and it's stopped speaking to me so I want to power through to get to something else).

At least Camille is living her best life. Today is Camille and Silo's Gotcha Day (I adopted them Jan 6, 2021).

This one is very odd! Not sure if I liked it..

3.75/5

A vampire story unlike any other, Monstrilio follows a mother and father whose child has recently died. Unable to let him go, Magos cuts out a piece of his lung, preserves it, and feeds it. The lung turns into a creature that isn't human, but Magos and her now estranged husband just can't let him go. But is that really what's best for him, especially when he craves raw meat and living up to a dead boy is an impossibility? Perfect for Halloween.

Man this one hurt. A painful exploration of grief and how it grows in ways you can‘t expect and shapes relationships and sense of self.

Very well written. The last part hurt me.

#scarathon #scarathonphotochallenge #teamBOOklovers

#Scarathlon Photo Challenge Day 14 prompt: Monster

I love this cover so much.

#HHC

@bookmarktavern @dabbe @liatrek @jessclark78 @chrissyreadit @thedaysgoby @vonnie862 @ladyCait84 @sresendez12 @kelli7990 @JessieKB

A complex, tender, absorbing novel about love & grief & acceptance. In our horror book club, we discussed a variety of interpretations of monstrosity, but one reason I love this book is that it isn‘t a metaphor or parable. Here, the bizarre becomes feasible through his emotional realism. I loved this book.

Surreal dark comedy gothic horror. Mourning mother grows a monster from chunk of dead son's lung. Echoes Jan Å vankmajer‘s “Otesánek,â€� parents caring for monstrous, dangerous baby. 4 POVs: mother, friend, father, Monstrilio. First section=so strong & good, subsequent lose focus & motivation. Grief, parenting, sexuality. 2023

106 “My mother thought I was a monster and didn‘t love me because of it. This thing, an actual f*cking monster, was loved.â€�

Themed date night.

My husband and I went to a Latin American restaurant last night. I ordered The Chupacabras drink ( chupacabra means goat sucker in Spanish) I remember being little- maybe 7 or 8 and my parents would watch trash news stations where they reported sighting of this monster that would go to farms at night and suck animals dry of their blood. Here I am 36 with an interest in novels with similar creatures 🤣

Finished book #25. Monstrilio is the story of Magos and Joseph. Their son Santiago dies at age 11, and both parents deal with their grief differently- but share the commonality of caring for Monstrilio ( a monster grown from Santiago‘s body). I really loved how the story was written in 4 parts and 4 perspectives. I fell in love with all the characters and thought the ending was perfect.

Up next 👹

I haven't been as active on Litsy the past few months but I couldn't miss out on getting my books in for #CampLitsy23.

Thank you @squirrelbrain @megabooks and @BarbaraBB for doing this again. I can't wait to see the longlist. All books will be tagged in the comments. #CampLitsy2023 #Camplitsy

One thing to know about this book going in is that it opens with a child‘s death. What follows is a surreal, sometimes grotesque or horrifying, nevertheless hauntingly beautiful story about grief and family. The narrative is complex, providing four different viewpoints into the story, and yet it is also compulsively readable—I had trouble putting it down. And particularly gripping in how it asks us to consider what “monstrousâ€� means. Remarkable.

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