Having read this book earlier this year, I was really excited to check out the Book Club Kit that went with it. I think having this as a pairing to my reading would have been lovely. I loved the thought-provoking questions, the essay on the evolution of the gothic novel, and the playlist. The playlist in particular was a very cool element that I thought would have elevated my first reading of this novel.

However, different individual elements could have either been shortened or left out all together. The essay about the climate in Mexico was much too drawn out and sounded a bit preachy. The thing that most flabbergasted me was the inclusion of paper dolls. I completely understand wanting to include pictures of the outfits that were featured in the book but..... this isn't a book for children so I can't fathom that a book club would take the time to cut those out and.... play with them?

Overall, I think this makes a good complement to the book.

When requesting this book I did not realize it was a book club kit. But once I actually gave it a look it was very helpful. It includes information on the author as well as useful questions to discuss with your group. Overall it was very enjoyable and a great tool for any book club.

Great Book Club Kit! I love downloading the book club kit companions for my books, being head of a book club, it makes my job easier to have this, before I type and print out our discussion topics. The book club kit helps a lot in guiding discussion as well, as it helped me gain a lot of knowledge and understanding I didn't previously have about the book.

Book Review

Title: Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia

Genre: Horror, Fantasy

Rating: ****

I haven’t read anything by this author before but I have heard great things about this book and decided to pick it up as I love a good horror. The opening to Mexican Gothic was interesting as we are introduced to Noemi Taboada, girl who comes from a high standing family when she is called home from a party one night. Noemi’s father explains that he received a disturbing letter from her cousin, Catalina who recently married Virgil Doyle and he wants Noemi to go to their home, High Place and make sure Catalina is ok. Noemi agrees because her father agrees to allow her to take a Master’s Degree if she does and immediately prepares to leave. When Noemi arrives in the town that houses High Place she immediately feels like she has stepped into another world complete with an intensely creepy atmosphere and is introduced to Virgil’s cousin, Francis and his mother, Florence. She does get to see Catalina briefly who tells Noemi that she has been sick with TB and plagued by fevers but I can instantly tell by Catalina’s reserved and blank demeanour that there is definitely something else going on here and I hope that Noemi gets to the bottom of it.

As we approach the ¼ mark in the novel, we continue to follow Noemi as she tries to settle into High Place but is struggling but she puts on a brave face for Catalina. By the time the family doctor visits, she wants a second opinion as she has seen a family member with TB before and Catalina acts nothing like she did and she immediately suspects that the family are trying to keep her hidden away for some reason. Virgil agrees if she can get the local doctor to agree and she uses Francis to gain access to a car and goes into town. There she meets with the doctor who tells her he wouldn’t be welcome at High Place but she manages to convince him to come on Monday and then heads to the local healer for a remedy Catalina bought off her before. Through Martha she learns more about the bloody history of High Place and about Ruth Doyle who killed her entire family except her baby brother, Virgil. She even shot her father but he managed to survive and Noemi pays quite handsomely for this information as it gives her a better understanding of the family. Martha also mentions that she believes the house is cursed as Florence’s husband and Francis’ father, experienced the same things Catalina is experiencing and he ends up dead but Noemi isn’t overly worried yet. However, the father constantly seems to be drawing Noemi into discussions about eugenics and making some sinister comments and possibly some advances towards her and right now the book is giving me similar vibes to Get Out and I am eager to see where this goes.

As we cross the ¼ mark in the novel, despite the haunting atmosphere and stories nothing has really happened with Catalina or Noemi apart from some odd behaviour and strange dreams so I am hoping it picks up soon as I can’t stand slow paced horror or thriller books as it gets boring very quickly. When the other doctor comes to visit the house, he can’t determine whether or not Catalina actually has TB without an x-ray which they aren’t going to get but he does agree that Catalina need psychiatric help but Virgil refuses to do this even when Noemi confronts him directly about it. However, she is beginning to notice more and more strange things about High Place as she begins experiencing strange dreams where Howard and Virgil come to sexually assault her and the images of snake and mushrooms constantly appears. One repeating image is that of the ouroboros, which happens to be the family crest but it is also the symbol of immortality which might hint at some of the secret the family is keeping and why they are so few people in the house and why so many have died there. Noemi is also having to confront the cemetery where Catalina is insistent about as she believes something lives there and she wants Noemi to find it although her mood swings make these desire difficult to comprehend. Throughout all this, Noemi is also finding herself enjoying Francis’ company and even contemplates more than once that she can see herself developing a relationship for him but his family is the main reason she wouldn’t especially Howard as everyone in that home is required to bend to his will and rules and Noemi makes a point of breaking these rules.

As we approach the halfway mark in the novel, Noemi is getting more and more bound to the house, not just by her growing feeling for Francis but because Catalina seems so bound to High Place and she can’t abandon her despite her fear. Noemi continues to dig deeper into the Doyle family, learning more about their dark and bloody past and how the house itself seems to have latched onto this and is pushing it onto other members of the family. It seems that those that are kind hearted and gentle like Francis and Catalina are more affected than other and when Francis says that Ruth should have burned the house to the ground, Noemi is coming to realise how much of a hold the place has over the family which is why they never seem to leave even though they should be able to. This is definitely starting to give me vibes similar to The Woman in Black where the restless spirits seem to be more attached to the house rather than the people and Noemi needs to find out why and who is behind it. I think it could either be Ruth who had the worst time at the house or possibly Agnes, Howard’s first wife whose headstone says mother but from what Noemi knows of the family both of Howard’s children, Virgil and Ruth came from his second wife, Alice. As the mystery surrounding the house and the Doyle family deepens we can see how Noemi is being sucked in to and if this continues for much longer she might not be able to leave. Despite this, the slow pacing is infuriating as I want more to happen especially with the horror and supernatural elements of the novel.

As we cross into the second half of the novel, time is passing but things are getting weirder the longer Noemi spends at High Place. First it is small things like Noemi sleepwalking again like she did when she was a child and experiencing strange dreams. The dreams seem to be coming from Ruth and she is trying to tell Noemi something about High Place and the Doyle family but Noemi doesn’t seem to understand what the message is. Francis is also giving Noemi a lot of hints but she isn’t understanding those either and he eventually is going to tell her something but they are interrupted by Howard who seems to be dying. Noemi’s dreams continue to get stranger as Virgil invades them, drawing to her to him and attempting to seduce her but Ruth is there helping Noemi awaken when she is lost in these dreams. While these dreams unnerve Noemi and she believes that Virgil knows more than he is letting on she writes them off as dreams until one day she experiences one while she is wide awake. In the daydream, the mould in her room is moving and she almost kisses it until her cigarette burns her and she awakens. However, Florence and Virgil arrive in her room claiming she has yelled when Noemi has no memory of doing such a thing and she begins to believe that she is losing her mind but her logical side is also telling her that there is far more to the story she has yet to uncover. I think Ruth is guiding Noemi to the truth but she is also scaring Noemi to the point where she now wants to leave High Place but the heavy rains are currently preventing it. We can feel that the novel is building to something but I hope that all this built up pays off in the end.

As we approach the ¾ mark in the novel, Noemi is set on leaving High Place and for the first time the Doyle family make her feel accepted in the house, like they are trying to convince her to stay but when it doesn’t work they tell her she should at least say goodbye to Howard before she leaves and she agrees. When they enter Howard’s room she finds him corpse like with festering boils all over one leg and they drag her over to him so he can force some of the black bile down her throat. When she awakes Francis explains that there is a fungus running all under the house and cemetery which Howard discovered could extend his life but it wouldn’t make him immortal in his own body. Over generations he has inbred his family to make sure they keep their compatibility with the fungus and when he “dies” he moves his consciousness into the body of one of his male children and bred with the female children which is what happened with his sisters, his many wives and he even wanted to marry his daughter, Ruth to her cousin to ensure this would continue. Ruth was the first to openly oppose this which leads to her death but the family have discovered that the inbreeding has left them unable to have children. Florence was able to have a son but also have many still births and miscarriages and this has become more common so they introduced new blood in the form of Catalina to correct this and Howard is going to be moved into Virgil’s body. However, when Noemi arrived they realised she was more compatible with the house as it willing showed her things without Howard’s prompting and they decide she was going to married to Francis and made part of the family. Francis doesn’t want this as he genuinely cares for Noemi and agrees to try and help her escape but she needs to weaken the fungus’ hold on her which Catalina was doing with the tonic but her strength of will isn’t as strong as Noemi’s. However, Howard has the ability to manipulate people with the fungus and Virgil has used this same control on Noemi more than once in her dreams, so time is running out for her now.

As we cross into the final section of the novel, I was a little disappointed by the time I reached the end of Mexican Gothic. I have to say it was interesting and unique as I haven’t read a horror that features murderous mushrooms before but I did think with the amount of build up that the ending was a little lacklustre and I personally felt it could have benefited from a more ambiguous ending or a completely 180 similar to that of Rosemary’s Baby. Overall, I really enjoyed Mexican Gothic but I did feel the ending was the weakest part of the novel and the pacing was too slow with too little going on for the majority of the novel.

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This book club kit was very well done! It was incredibly helpful in our book club discussions, The informative content, added context and the questions all helped facilitate our thoughts about the book. It was easier to get people communicating and sharing their thoughts when we had a base to start with.

Really useful document to assist in a book club discussion on a really great book. I have recommended

i actually didn't read it right and im kinda new at netgalley so i got this by mistake thinking it really was the book lol but it was actually really interesting and its going to be one of my next reads regardless and im a part of a book club so im definitely going to suggest the book and use the questions. also i loved the art inside!

I read Mexican Gothic for my book club last month so I thought it would be the perfect opportunity to check out this book club kit!
- The background information on the location and history was super interesting.
- The Spotify playlist was legitimately very creepy and definitely fit the vibe of the book.
- While I was reading the book, I thought Noemi’s outfits sounded really cool so I enjoyed being able to actually see what they looked like with the Noemi paper dolls included in the kit.
- My only complaint is that the questions were a bit generic. The conversation my book club ended up having without the prompts were a lot more in depth but it was nice to fall back on the questions when we weren’t sure what to say.
Normally I make up my own questions or do some research on the book before a book club meeting, so I enjoyed not having to worry about any of that. If my book club decides to read another book that has a book club kit, I would for sure try another one!

How fun is this book club kit! I'm excited to read Mexican Gothic especially after all the background the author shared about its significance. The activity of dressing up Noami takes me back to my childhood. I loved activities like that!

Great kit to help organise your book club discussions. Mexican Gothic is definitely a good book to read and discuss.

This is an excellent book club kit that I would recommend for any book club. The discussion questions are great, and any group would benefit from them.

i'm surprised with this book. I think talk about this book is the better way to understand how great it is.

The “Mexican Gothic” book club kit is a fantastic resource for a book club for both the younger and older audiences. The amount of thought that went into this kit by the author Silvia Moreno-Garcia can clearly be seen in the attention to detail of the various components- from the killer playlist (which I now have downloaded to listen to), to the “Dress Up Noemí” section which brought me back to my childhood!

Particularly interesting was the discussion questions which would shape a very interesting book club meeting. The letter from the author section really provided an insight into what inspired Silvia to write this book and the historical context for the novel.

The themes that are prevalent throughout the novel such as the exploitation of the indigenous people, slavery, patriarchal superiority are all mentioned in this kit, really helping to guide and shape a reader and book club organiser’s interests when reading “Mexican Gothic”.

I loved the inclusion of the article comparing Gothic Romances and Domestic Noirs which I think would add a more advanced level to a book club discussion (this would be of particular interest for a college/university class/module on literature).

A wonderful kit designed to enhance the reading of “Mexican Gothic” for any reader.

Thank you to NetGalley, Silvia Moreno-Garcia and Penguin Random House Library Resources for giving me the opportunity to read and enjoy this kit!

A really good tool for Book Clubs! This helps provide extra information and context to the novel, as well as acting as a guide for Book Club discussions.

This is a unique book club kit, with a focus on providing historical context for the novel. The kit includes several articles with more information, a letter from the author, book club questions, and a paper doll activity with historically accurate fashions. The weakest part of this kit was the book club questions, which were mostly "how did you feel/did you like x?" questions, but it's definitely worth looking at for the other information.

Book Club Kit: Mexican Gothic

Thank you Penguin publishers and Netgalley for approval of this book.
I loved the questions and discussion ideas to discuss the famous book with my bookish friends.

I heard nothing but good things about this book. I totally enjoyed the story and i think it lived upto the hype. It’s was a little bit mystery, mixed with supernatural elements.

Really useful for the book club but even for those that need guidance reviewing a book. I really liked the book and this made me reflect on it more.

Oh man, I downloading this thinking it was the actual book. Sad day. I got too excited and downloaded it super fast without reading what it actually contained.

Apologies wasn't aware this is not the book. Looking for to reading it at some point since it sounds fantastic