The Haunting of Alejandra

November 7, 2022
Castro (Mestiza Blood) puts a unique twist on the Mexican legend of La Llorona in this eerie contemporary horror story of a woman’s struggle against both her inner demons and the demons of her family’s past. From the outside, Alejandra has the perfect life, complete with a well-off husband, a nice house in Philadelphia, and three healthy children. But on the inside, Alejandra has lost her sense of identity and finds herself falling deeper into a hole of darkness and despair. Alejandra fears she’s losing her mind when she starts hearing voices and sees the ghostly apparition of a crying woman in a white dress. She reaches out to Melanie Ortiz, a therapist and curandera, and together they uncover that the curse of La Llorona, the crying woman, has plagued the women in Alejandra’s family for generations. Alejandra must draw on her own inner strength and the strength of her ancestors, who readers meet in flashbacks, to break the cycle of torment. Castro cleverly uses Mexican folklore to shine a light on multigenerational trauma, but the jumping timelines and stilted dialogue create a level of remove from the more visceral chills. Still, horror fans who prefer psychological scares will find plenty to enjoy here.

Starred review from January 1, 2023

Alejandra has just moved with her husband and three children from Texas to Philadelphia, only months after finally connecting with her birth mother, Cathy. Overwhelmed, lonely, and plagued by suicidal thoughts, Alejandra is barely getting through each day. Via a narrative told mostly from Alejandra's point of view in the novel's present, and enhanced by well-placed and clearly marked flashbacks beginning in 1522 and moving forward in time, readers follow Alejandra and her ancestors and can only watch helplessly as a demon stalks the women of Alejandra's family for centuries. Using the Mexican folklore of La Llorona as a frame and expertly updating it for a modern audience, Castro writes a story about generational trauma, colonization, systemic oppression, and the horror at the heart of motherhood. Utterly terrifying and wholly immersive, this novel will wow readers with its confident and unflinching tale of a woman reclaiming her power. VERDICT The big-five-publisher debut by Castro (Out of Aztlan; Bram Stoker Award--nominated The Queen of the Cicadas) will bring her critically acclaimed, honest, sensual, and raw storytelling to a larger audience. Suggest far and wide to fans of unapologetically feminist, thought-provoking, and engrossing horror, such as the works of Carmen Maria Machado and Gwendolyn Kiste.

Copyright 2023 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

March 15, 2023
A woman with little knowledge of her family history is visited by an ancient curse. Castro returns to her sweet spot--layering folkloric monsters onto private trauma--for this generational ghost story. Even those who enjoy a straightforward horror tale may be dismayed by the sheer despair surrounding the titular Alejandra. Terrified by motherhood and depressed by her own self-loathing, she finds suicide whispering in her ear amid a cacophony of slurs like "Difficult woman. Sick woman. Dead woman." An adoptee of Mexican descent who has only recently reconnected with her birth mother, Alejandra is isolated in an upper-middle-class ivory tower thanks to her absentmindedly cruel husband and three demanding children. Unaware of her family history, she imagines her demons to be illness, unchecked. We soon learn that Alejandra's torture comes via La Llorona, a mythic woman who drowned her children and herself and now haunts the living as a banshee--or at least something primeval using the folk demon as a guise. As the wraith begins to appear in corporeal form to her children and birth mother, Alejandra finds a comrade in therapist Melanie Ortiz, who has a sideline as a curandera, a spiritual medicine woman. Castro's remarkable balancing act juxtaposes the emotional turmoil of a bad marriage and depression against the very real and visceral horrors swirling around Alejandra, painting with dripping, peek-between-your-fingers menace. The story is also peppered with flashbacks from the 17th century forward, showing the demon's trickery toward Alejandra's ancestors and the fatal consequences that follow. There's a lot to like here. For horror fans, there's the palpable feeling of not believing one's eyes added to the grotesquerie of the drowned fiend and a not inconsiderable amount of child endangerment. At a deeper level, Castro's tale of a woman both asking for help and taking possession of her own spirit delivers cheerworthy moments of empowerment. A surprisingly moving, piercingly effective parable about exorcisms of all sorts of demons.

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April 14, 2023
A despondent housewife collides with the supernatural in this deeply felt exploration of family and intergenerational trauma. On the surface, Alejandra has a glossily perfect life with a nice house, cute kids, and a business-focused husband. But their recent move north has broken her reconnection to her Mexican birth mother, and as her depression mounts, she is haunted by phantomlike visions and a voice urging her to give in to her despair. Alejandra finds a Hispanic therapist who is also a traditional curandera, and begins unraveling the idea that she's being haunted by the crying spirit of La Llorona. Alejandra's story is interspersed with the stories of her foremothers, whose trauma attracted a demonic spirit that has followed the women of her family through the ages. Therapist Melanie helps Alejandra stay focused on the trauma that her family has endured, and fights the presence of the spirit as she reconnects Alejandra to her past. Castro (Out of Aztlan, 2022) breaks up Alejandra's present with stories of her female ancestors as she struggles to defeat the sinister evil that threatens to take her life. The metaphor of colonialism in the guise of a malevolent spirit provides the terror with a very real presence and urgency that readers will connect to as they watch Alejandra's struggle to reclaim her life. Readers interested in collisions with supernatural and traditional culture will also enjoy Bad Cree, by Jessica Johns (2023).

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