Book Review: Piñata by Leopoldo Gout

Title: Piñata

Author: Leopoldo Gout
Genre: Horror - Occult Fiction - Latinx Fiction
Publisher: Tor Nightfire - Copyright 2023
Publication Date: March 14, 2023
ISBN: 9781250781178
Read: February 28 - March 5, 2023
Disclaimer: I received a digital advance reader copy from the publisher via Netgalley. All opinions are my own.

Trigger Warning: Graphic violence including child abuse/death and gore

Synopsis from Publisher: It was supposed to be the perfect summer. 

Carmen Sanchez is back in Mexico, supervising the renovation of an ancient abbey. Her daughters Izel and Luna, too young to be left alone in New York, join her in what Carmen hopes is a chance for them to connect with their roots. 

Then, an accident at the worksite unearths a stash of rare, centuries-old artifacts. The disaster costs Carmen her job, cutting the family trip short. But something malevolent and unexplainable follows them home to New York, stalking the Sanchez family and heralding a coming catastrophe. And it may already be too late to escape what’s been awakened… 

They were worshiped by our ancestors. 

Now they are forgotten. 

Soon, they’ll make us remember.

Review: Where do I begin to explain my love for this book? It's creepy. It's visceral. It's atmospheric. It's dark. It's everything good horror should be and more.

Carmen Sanchez is an architect and single mother of two daughters: sixteen-year-old Izel and eleven-year-old Luna. When she's hired to spearhead the renovation of an ancient abbey to a sleek, modern hotel in Mexico, Carmen sees it as a way for her to give the girls a first-hand view of their cultural heritage. In typical teenaged fashion, Izel hates being uprooted from her friends back home in New York while Luna embraces the experience with open arms. But Carmen's problems are soon to extend beyond her daughters' attitudes. When a job site accident exposes a long-forgotten chamber within the abbey, Carmen finds herself on the losing end of employment. The family returns to their urban home but something seems to have tagged along and is focused on Luna. Can Carmen find a way to save her daughter before an ancient Aztec god can exact its revenge on the world?

One of my favor subgenres of horror is folkloric horror, and Piñata nicely fills that category. Drawing on the rich history of Mesoamerica, Gout creates a new twist on the traditional possession story. Laced throughout the narrative are the echoes of colonialism, past and present misogyny and sexism, indigenous religions, and violence. The imagery is intense and graphic, which some readers may find difficult to read, and the fear is palpable. At times Gout seems to fall into the "info dump" trap and this drags the pace of the story down a bit, and at other times, the dialogue seems a bit stilted and unnatural. However, overall, Piñata is a wonderfully horror-filled dark tale that any fan of dark fiction will enjoy.