House of Bone and Rain

“House of Bone and Rain” is my first read by this author. I loved the beginning chapters. The book centers on a group of five friends. The murder of one of their mothers drives them to seek revenge on those responsible. Two of the friends, Bimbo and Gabe, are the focus of the story. This book contains many violent scenes (which I immediately fell in love with). However, the novel takes a strange turn about halfway, and I found it rather boring. The hardcore street elements were enjoyable, but then the plot veered into the supernatural. And fish, let’s not forget about the fish. Initially, it was a five-star read, but the rating eventually fell to 3.75.

Knew I wanted to get to this while it was still new. After reading The Devil Takes You Home and getting a feel for the author, that desire only went up. Also nicely fit as a Hispanic Heritage Month read!

This is a revenge story like no other. A group of friends seek revenge after one of their mothers is murdered. These childhood friends stick together no matter how dark and dangerous things become. No matter how many twists or lies become uncovered. As I am coming to gather is the author’s signature, this book is anything but just a revenge story. Multilayered and devastating, their devotion to each other will have you recalling childhood friendships that seemed so unbreakable, and have you thankful things never came to this.

One thing that seems a constant, is that no matter where the author takes us—in this case Puerto Rico—his writing has this razor sharp edge to it, that is both poetic and devastating. As with his other novel I’ve read, this book has huge dialogue sections mixed with Spanish and no translation. This unerring stance is his stamp of authenticity that will keep me coming back for years to come. I do not speak Spanish, and as I was listening to the audio while working, I am not in the camp of people translating for themselves as they read. Especially as I do not have any text. I just love this idea that there’s three experiences out there for every book he writes. No translations, translations while reading, and Spanish speaking. The fact that I can find so much to enjoy while not knowing chunks of dialogue is such a success to me, and makes me want to experience it in other ways.

And as these friends get deeper and deeper into this revenge plot, the further they’re forced to go is also getting deeper. Iglesias does so much with violence that I never knew was even possible. These bouts of hyper-violence are so dark and shocking, but still so layered into how everyone processes them, that they further the plot too. Each friend feels differently, will do something differently. But they’re together til the end, right? The author uses this shock value to further hammer home his themes.

As a hurricane blows in, the author uses it as the perfect curtain to draw over everything and add in a bit of mysticism and supernatural. And while metaphoric in itself, it’s also a shockingly creepy twist all on its own.

“All stories are ghost stories, and some stories turn us into ghosts.”

How far would you go for revenge? Would you up the violence, the depravity, to reach your goal? Would you let it whittle you away until there was nothing left?