Sarah's Reviews > Our Share of Night

This is one of those books I can’t really put into words. It’s about a cult, yes. It’s a cult that worships a demonic type entity called The Darkness and pursues the secret of immortality.

But it’s also a character driven story following a boy named Gaspar, struggling trying to make sense of his legacy and his relationship with his father? I don’t know if that makes sense.

And then the heart of the story is a dark metaphor for the Argentinian dictatorship and the Dirty War that lurks in the fringes of this story. Always present but almost never the focus.

It was exhausting to read. Frustratingly dense through all (almost) 600 pages. No chapter breaks, just sections averaging 150 pages in length. At one point I went through 3.5 pages with no PARAGRAPH breaks. Just walls of text.

Density aside, it’s also so dark. Abuse (primarily of children). Mutilations. Rape. Suicide. Self harm. Abductions. It fits the metaphor, but it’s hard to read.

But I found the characters very compelling. There was never a point where I didn’t want to know how it ended. Never a point that I put it down and didn’t want to pick it back up. I thought the writing/translation was brilliant. Not sure if it’s a trope or a plot device but the idea of liminal spaces kept popping up- which is one of my favorites.

It’s a quiet sort of book. Lots happens but also nothing happens and because of the way it’s told, we’re just constantly propelled forward by the stream of consciousness style, a chain of vignettes strung together.

I think I will be thinking about this one for so many days/years/months to come. It’s a book that leaves an impression. If my praise sounds modest it’s mostly because it requires significantly more thought then I have put into this short review. Really excited to check out more of Enriquez’s work. (May also go hunt down more of McDowell’s translations.)

Thank you to the publisher and GoodReads for the free copy I won in a giveaway.