Desperate Father’s Harrowing Journey

The Devil Takes You Home is a dark and intense novel that blends elements of horror, crime thriller, and supernatural fiction. The story follows Mario, a struggling father and husband whose life is shattered when his young daughter is diagnosed with cancer. Faced with insurmountable medical bills, Mario is driven to extreme measures.

The Devil Takes You Home by Gabino Iglesias is a powerful and gripping novel that explores the darkest corners of the human experience. With its intense plot, complex characters, and masterful writing, it is a standout work in contemporary horror and crime fiction. While its brutal themes and graphic violence may not be for everyone, those who venture into its pages will find a story that is both harrowing and unforgettable.

The Devil Takes You Home is an enthralling and depressing look at losing everything and trying to rebuild packaged inside a no-holds-barred thriller full of creepy and disturbing imagery. Gabino Iglesias introduces himself to the mainstream literary world kicking down the door and guns blazing with this novel. This is one journey into the darkness well worth taking.

One of the best books I read this year. I love how the author portrays the lunacy of religion. I will never forget El Milagrito though, for better or worse, lol. I also loved that I got to practice my Spanish. Can't wait for his next book., will read everything he writes.

An amazing dark book with crossover appeal for those who love noir, crime stories, and litfic.

The sort of claustrophobic oppressive weight of poverty and the desperation of no viable options permeates the book. It’s as terrifying as any monster.

I feel like there’s a line between horror and thriller that publishers just can’t seem to figure out when to cross it. This is not horror, and that’s not the author’s fault but this wasn’t the book I thought it was going to be.

THE DEVIL TAKES YOU HOME by Gabino Iglesias (Coyote Songs, Zero Saints) is described as a barrio noir and it’s pretty fantastic! Combining the dark grit of a noir thriller with elements of supernatural horror, THE DEVIL TAKES YOU HOME explores what a man is willing to do for his family, and how those choices may resonate throughout his life. Set primarily in Texas and Mexico, topics including racism, immigration, language, and violence are prevalent throughout the novel. Overall I found Mario to be a really compelling protagonist, and several of the horror scenes to be wonderfully terrifying. While the ending didn’t exactly provide everything I hoped for, ultimately I really loved reading this book. Monolingual English language readers should be advised there is a lot of Spanish in the book, so you might want to consider an ebook edition if your device includes a translate function, or possibly purchase from Book of the Month Club as they were providing a translation guide with their edition.

Gabino Iglesias only knows one way to write: unflinchingly bold, searingly honest. The idea of pulling punches never crosses his mind, and every blow that lands is devastating. The Devil Takes You Home is the type pf read that will haunt you, lingering, challenging you to not only examine the events of the story at face value, but also question the lens through which you viewed it.

This book is a gut punch. A flawless blend of horror and noir, THE DEVIL TAKES YOU HOME locks you in a vice grip and never once lets go. Seamlessly blending the supernatural, the spiritual, and the grim reality of life and death, this book is not for the faint of heart. TW/CW for child loss, violence against children, violence in general, drug use. While this book isn't always pretty, the prose is exquisite, the plot is a rollercoaster of the most intense emotions, and the story is deeply heartfelt and action packed. I can't recommend this one enough!

A wonderful bit of barrio-noir. The Devil Takes You Home is a great read with an amazing voice. This is what the world needs now, challenging narratives. One of my favorite books of the year.

I finished this book with mixed feelings. Did I like it? Yes. But some parts were too long, and I wanted more Latin Folkfore. With that being said, I could not stop thinking about this book! All weekend, I wanted to discuss it with anyone who would listen. The more I reflected, the more I loved!

What I found Iglesias wrote exceptionally well was the intersection of grief, poverty, and racism. How these can fuel vengeance when the door to hope closes, and in this case, slammed shut! Layer that with religion and now people can justify the unjustifiable. The book is dark, gritty, violent, desperate, and unforgiving. His writing presents a reality that's all too common in our society, and I felt every word, dialogue, and scene with a punch to my gut. Vividly brutal!

The Devil Takes You Home forced me to think, question, and reflect on a reality that is not my own and a story I won't forget. One hell of a ride - I loved it!

Who should read this:
✨Fans of S.A. Cosby and Stephen King’s The Outsider or TV shows Breaking Bad and Ozark

My third book by Gabino Iglesias, and it absolutely will not be my last -- so, so dang good. I don't normally read a whole lot of dedicated crime fiction, but I have to pick up anything this author writes. He constantly nails that gritty, grimey vibe and I LOVED this story filled with amazing social commentary re: things like classism, racism, etc. Although this is very crime oriented, it's very horror-feeling, too -- especially with some of that gore, WOW. So so good.

What: a father who has lost his family accepts a hit job across the Mexican border
Features: brutally illustrates what grief will force a person to do
Assets: rich prose narrating a man'd descent into violence and desperation, and readers feel the dread that happy endings don't exist.
Obstacles: elements of traditional horror masterfully slide into the narrative, which may cause readers expecting a more straightforward tale to balk slightly. Most readers will overwhelmingly welcome this as it feels so real within the unreality (in most of our lives) of the task undertaken by the main character.
Who it’s for: horror/thriller readers looking for that book that you can't compare anything else you've read to.

The tale is filled with heavy imagery, not only gore that could rival the best of horror tales, but other "happenings" that Latinos would be familiar with.
Mario's character provides a wonderful narrator, but also a study in poverty with comments that are likely to resonate far and wide.

An important horror, crime novel that deals with racism and classism. I appreciated this book and would love to read more from the author in the future!

One thing about Gabino Iglesias books is, they are haunting, in every sense of the word and in more ways than one. The Devil Takes You Home will have you saying, Qué miedo, qué dolor, qué tragedia! Gabino weaves real the life horrors of being a brown immigrant in the US and dealing with a broken, racist health system, the desperation of poverty and loss, the border issues of trafficking and the violence of the narco world and combined it so cleverly with the supernatural. And when I say supernatural, I don't even know where to begin with this book! I mean full on ñañaras! think I'm not even gonna delve into it for those who haven't read this, pa' qué les den nañaras también. If you like stories with black and white characters, this might not be the book for you. The characters are complex, existing in the gray areas and shadows of the traumas life has thrown at them. That ending had me like,'
"me lleva el diablo" and then the title
made all the

Iglesias accomplishes something amazing with The Devil Takes You Home. Beautiful writing paired with piss-your-pants-terror. As a parent, it's hard to imagine anything worse than a life-threatening illness in your child, but you can imagine doing whatever it takes to fix it. I'm going to be seeking out every last word that Gabino Iglesias writes because holy shit, he's good. Big thanks to the publisher, author, and NetGalley for the chance to read The Devil Takes You Home.

Excellent mixture of crime novel with weird horror, as a reluctant hitman finds himself enmeshed in a strange mission to steal a cartel's payroll and wreak some vengeance at the same time. Book also spends a lot of time talking about what it's like to be poor and a minority and have to deal with casual racism every day. There are a lot of passages with untranslated Spanish, but I never felt like I didn't understand what was going on. If anything, I probably missed out on a few subtleties and nuances that would have brought the story to even more focused, realistic life. I really, really enjoyed this one.

Most-generous-guy-in-Twit-Lit Gabino Iglesias knocks it out of the park, here -- a white-knuckle thriller and chiller, unapologetic in its voice and tone and plot. It's scary, it's human, it's dark and twisted and a blast. Totally unexpected and also exactly right.

When the unthinkable happens, what’s still unthinkable? What would you do to get hope back? Is there anything you wouldn’t do?

Imagine getting stuck in the anger stage of grieving. That’s where Mario find himself and he spends the rest of the book convincing himself that his actions and the situations he finds himself in are a means to end. I’m not going to go into the plot much, but the short version is that a man at the end of his rope takes a job that that will change his life and might just provide him opportunities he’s never had as a Mexican American living in the US. It’s going to be dangerous, but when you’re at rock bottom, how much further down can you fall?

One aspect of the novel I really enjoyed was not knowing exactly what was going on. The characters in the book are told only what they need to know and the reader is in the same predicament. This is a world Mario and his friend aren’t part of or used to, and we find out how brutal, horrific, and unnatural things are right along with them. This device builds tension throughout and when the damn breaks, we have no idea what’s happening. We’re definitely not in Kansas anymore.

I hesitate to include this next part, but it seems like there’s some contention about it, so I’ll say my piece. There’s a lot more Spanish in this novel than you’re probably used to. Most of the novel is still in English, and the really important things are restated in English or referenced by another character in English. You don’t need to translate it to enjoy the book, or at least I didn’t. That said, Book of the Month sells the book with a translation guide, or you can manually translate phrases in an ebook or even use an app on a physical copy. I took two years of Spanish in high school (20 years ago, forgot most of it) and I was able to get the gist of a lot of it from context, so…what I’m trying to say is, don’t let that stop you.

I can honestly say I’ve never read a novel that’s mixed these particular elements together. Crime. Magical realism. Religion. Racism. Extreme violence. Grit. While I’m certainly not the first one to make the comparison, this has a supernatural Breaking Bad vibe. Not in that someone is creating an illegal empire, but more that a man pushed beyond breaking finds themselves in a world they don’t know. If that sounds like something you’d be into, go grab a copy.

“Sometimes God is your copilot, but it’s the devil who takes you home.”

Wow.

What a book. The Devil Takes You Home is my first Gabino Iglesias book, and I’m not sure why I waited so long to read him. His writing is visceral. He had me crying in the first few pages, and I don’t think I stopped until the end. Even then, maybe a few hours afterwards. It’s been over a month since I’ve finished this book, and it’s one I can’t stop thinking about.

Mario and Melisa live in Austin TX, and their daughter, four-year-old Anita, has been diagnosed with cancer. At first they’re hopeful. It is an easily treated childhood cancer. The doctor comes with bad news, though. Anita’s leukemia is a rare type that’s hard to treat. The bad news keeps coming when Mario loses his job due to Anita’s appointments.

“You can wrap a shotgun in flowers, but that doesn’t make the blast less lethal.”

Tragedy after tragedy sees Mario become a hit man. He comes to the realization he can’t do this any longer, and works with a friend of his to do one last job. We follow Mario and two companions on the way to make some easy money. It seems too good to be true, and maybe it is.

This is not an easy read. There’s a lot to it (content warnings are below), but it really is worth it. If you are in the right headspace for a novel like this, I definitely recommend it. It combines a lot of subgenres to make one beautiful novel. There’s crime, horror, and fantasy. All wrapped up into a really bleak book.

I don’t want to give much more away, but I have to say, The Devil Takes You Home is one of my favorite books of all time. No pressure. Any author who makes me cry within the first few pages has a special place on my bookshelf.

Thank you to Mulholland Books and NetGalley for the chance to read this advanced review copy. All opinions are my own.

CW for death of a child, death, blood, gore, racism, body horror, murder, gun violence, grief, addiction/drug abuse, cancer, domestic abuse, suicidal thoughts, animal cruelty, miscarriage, transphobia, and child abuse