I thought I’d start with this one because the premise of the story is very interesting. It’s categorised under horror but it doesn’t have any scare factor in it which was a little disappointing. It felt more like a general fiction than horror.

This story follows Mercy and her complicated emotions about people she love and her small New Mexico town, Sueno. It touches on how the curse of La Llorona haunts girls who shows weakness and sorrow. As soon as a girl shows fear or depression, she feeds off it and drags her victim with her. Mercy had dreams of leaving town and living in the big city with her best friend, Sherry but that dream was shattered when Sherry showed her sadness and fear. La Llorona almost got Mercy too but she fought for her life and defied what her life was to become but La Llorona never lets her victim go and continuously haunts her.

Mercy showed strength through her fears and she always reminisce on what her life could be. Although she slowly achieve a different dream, she still believed she is not worthy and doesn’t deserve happiness. She constantly restricts herself from feeling happy. I love reading about how Mercy navigate through grief, anger and acceptance in her ordeal. I love how she found her worth and never gave up fighting for herself. That part was beautifully written unfortunately the whole story felt a little draggy at times and I wished there was more to the story.

I was excited to read this - I love the cover, and was looking forward to reading about La Llorona as it seems like an underused story (at least in the horror I’ve read). Unfortunately, the novel didn’t really work for me. There are some beautiful turns of phrase, the protagonist is interesting and I enjoyed the setting. But the story really dragged despite its short length, and just never seemed to get going.