This book includes dark themes. Check all content warnings.

What if the pain and suffering of your people never went away? What if it were inherited like other priceless heirlooms? What if it waited until you were most vulnerable, lonely, and sad to manifest itself? Except it came to you as La Llorona and whispered in your ear?

Alejandra finds out that some curses are real and supernatural enough to need the help of not just any doctor or therapist, but requires the help of a curandera, a healer that uses traditional Latin American, non-Western medicine.

Simultaneous to Alejandra's story we learn of the strength of her Mexican ancestors: how they battled the conquistadors, fought for their own independence, and how the legend of La Llorona was born of a woman's desperation and deep love for her children.

Will Alejandra be strong enough to stop the curse, save her children from future torment, and end La Llorona? There's only one way to find out!

Content warning: self harm, suicidal ideation, abortion, spousal abuse

I have loved everything this author has put out there so far. This was probably my favorite, as of yet. Folk lore of a creepy myth. A great story. Good for Halloween.

This book is everything I'd expect from V. Castro: heartbreaking, by turns wildly depressing and exhilarating, and ferocious. It starts dark/bleak and keeps it up, but there are somewhat lighter moments to be found along the way. I was super excited to hear that Castro was doing a novel-length take on La Llorona, and this book did not disappoint.

Ah, Motherhood. It's a joy most days, but there are those days when you wonder if you've done anything right, will the exhaustion end and will you ever not worry about your children? What happens when those fears turn into something real? As in a curse.

THE HAUNTING OF ALEJANDRA is a sort of retelling of La Llorona. We find Alejandra in the midst of what appears to be post-partum depression.

Alejandra is dealing with a lot. She's in a loveless marriage with three kids trying to find her self worth while forming a new relationship with her birth mother who gave her up for adoption when she was a baby. Enter the horror portion of the story.

Alejandra realizes the creature/ghost/La Llorona folklore is real. And she's got to find a way to stop it before it harms her and her children.

With the help of her therapist, her mother and her ancestors who died before her because of the creature, she fights to end the curse once and for all.

I really enjoyed the Mexican folklore aspect. I was quite emotional as Alejandra fought from the depths of despair from motherhood and her marriage to realizing she had to get rid of the creature in order to have a life, a happy life, with her children.

The story was a bit more historical fiction than I normally enjoy with timelines flipping through centuries. However, it all added up to the present time which made sense.

Thank you NetGalley and Random House Publishing Group Ballantine for an e-copy of THE HAUNTING OF ALEJANDRA to review.

I rate THE HAUNTING OF ALEJANDRA four out of five stars.

The Haunting of Alejandra is the perfect blend of Mexican folklore and modern-day fears of motherhood. It is haunting, sad, and scary all at the same time. I really liked the main character Alejandra, I could really feel her emotions through V. Castro's writing. I also like the dual timeline.

I was nervous to start this book as I didn't have any idea of what to expect. I make it a point to read books with subject matter from different cultures as much as I can, but I was nervous that I had bit off more than I could chew with this one. What I found, however, was much more than I could have ever expected.

This book starts with Alejandra in the thick of post-partum depression. I seriously read the first 10-15% of the book through tears because I could relate so much to Alejandra's experience. I suffered from post-partum depression after my first child and it felt like the deepest, darkest pit and I'd never be able to get out of it. I'm grateful to have had an amazing support system that helped me get out of it. I really felt for Alejandra as she didn't have that support at home. I think this aspect of the book was done extremely well, and I appreciated that the author used therapy and talked so much about Alejandra not just healing for her children, but also healing for herself because she was just as important.

This book was SO creepy. It is the perfect spooky season read and if you're looking for horror, this one definitely takes the cake. It was so spooky that I almost wasn't sure I'd be able to finish it. I would say the story is medium paced, but I needed to know how it ended so I couldn't put it down. I didn't have any problems with the timelines and thought that they overall story timeline was done well.

Overall, this creeped me out so so so much, but it had a great underlying message and I would highly recommend it!

Review will be posted on my instagram (@readingwithtrey) at the end of March 2023.

First the book cover is beautiful and the story manages to successfully combine horror, Mexican folklore of La Llorona with womens fiction.

Alejandra is a wife and mother to 3 young children who has become disillusioned with her current life and has thoughts of suicide. She has begun to see visions of a haunting woman who means to take her life and daughters in the future. She is lucky to find a therapist who also uses curanderia in her practice and together they explore the nature of these hauntings. As they discover Alejandra's (and now her children"s) dreams and visions are a result of a generational curse, Alejandra reaches out to her birth mother to support her in ending the curse with her. The Mexican folklore tale of La Llorona is explored in this story but this is also a story of a woman finding herself while trying to save herself and her children. It was perfect read for Halloween season and Hispanic Heritage Month!

Thanks to Netgalley and Random House Publishing-Ballentine for this ARC read in e-book in exchange for my honest review.

Anyone living in Los Angeles is familiar with the lore of La Llorona, mostly because people claim that oftentimes at night, they can hear her crying. So of course when this novel popped up on my radar I knew that I simply HAD to read it. Castro’s novel is part Mexican lore and part generational curse and WOW anyone who’s a woman can relate to Alejandra’s plight as she tries to keep a happy exterior as marital pressures and her own dissatisfaction come to a head when La Llorona begins to haunt her. The novel explores the trials and tribulations that span across generations and how each woman has been affected by their encounter with La Llorona. The novel was both creepy and difficult read as women can easily see how often in marriages they’re expected to be mothers and wives first and foremost and to leave all sense of self behind. Alejandra finds herself at a crossroads when the haunting begins – she’s so unhappy with her life that death seems the only way out. I enjoyed learning more about the lore and Mexican history – that’s so rich, diverse, and oftentimes devastating. La Llorona was very terrifying in her descriptions that pale to any Hollywood version of her ever made. This book was riveting, terrifying, and utterly timely. I recommend it if you love your horror with a feminist edge.

*Thank you so much to NetGalley and Del Rey for the digital copy of this book in exchange for an honest review!

The Haunting of Alejandra was marketed as a horror novel, but the horror just doesn't take a stand in the story. Too much of the story works as a literary and historical fiction, and the horror takes a backseat for most of the novel. I expected La Llorona to do more in Alejandra's story than she did, and I was thoroughly disappointed. I didn't expect having so many perspectives for this story, and it got in the way of what the story wanted to achieve.

As for the characters, I think that the eldest daughter was two different characters and the author didn't know which personality would work best, so she used both. I also think that Alejandra's husband was so cruel that he became unrealistic. It didn't make sense that Alejandra's post-partum depression was so bad that this man wouldn't bother to notice the real toll it took on his wife. Their relationship wasn't believable to me.

Overall, this novel set out to tell a story without sticking to its premise...which was a different story than what was written.

Thanks to Netgalley and Random House for giving me the chance to read this ARC. This is my honest review.

When the book begins, the MC is in a very dark place, thinking suicide her only recourse to stop the depression and anxiety she constantly feels. As a stay at home mother, she is floundering, lacking a clear identity or purpose. Her emotional state is heart wrenching, Despite that, she never developed into a fully realized character.

I was somewhat familiar with the creepy tale of of La Llorona. It was interesting to learn more about her and about Mexican culture.

However the pacing was inconsistent and the writing unnecessarily repetitive and couldn't sustain my interest.

Generational Trauma, Body Horror, Colonization, Sexism, Racism, death, depression

I want to thank Netgalley and Random House for allowing me to read this book.

The Haunting of Alejandra is a beautifully crafted novel that centerizes femininity in the horror genre. It was a breath of fresh air to see femininity being represented through a lense other than the male gaze. The story gives a voice and authority to the women of the story. The haunting and ghost elements have a double meaning metaphorically and litearally. Metaphorically the ghost is generational trauma. Literally the ghost takes on the form of La Llorona. I absolutely loved this book and highly recommend reading it.

A young woman, Alejandra, struggles with darkness and trying to find her identity while coping with the burdens of being a wife and mother. Visited by a ghostly vision in white, La Llorona, in her darkest hours she begins to question her sanity. After visiting a therapist, she begins exploring her matriarchal family history and realizes the women who came before her were also haunted by the specter. She will have to pull from her foremother’s strength and courage if she wants to save herself

The Haunting of Alejandra is a tale of identity and despair which follows one woman's haunting by La Llorona, a vengeful and murderous mother of Mexican legend. This was the perfect addition to my fall reading list and I don't see many tales about La Llorona so I was pretty excited to start this one. I wanted to love this novella so much but I had such a hard time with it. This novella is beautifully written but Alejandra's struggles with "darkness" were a little too overwhelming for me. I felt like this authors writing style was very similar to that of Mariana Enriquez so if you enjoy her writing style then you will probably like this author just as much. Although this wasn't a good fit for me I think many readers will really enjoy this haunting tale of Mexican folklore and history.

I don't give out many 1 stars, in fact I think this is only the second time I've done so. I'm gonna keep this short and sweet.

THE CONCEPT
This is marketed as a retelling of La Llorona, which is a folktale I have always been familiar with.

THE PLOT
Alejandra is a mother of three and is experiencing severe depression. Her marriage is a crumbling thing; she feels zero support from her husband and has no friends since their move to a new city. Alejandra hears a voice in her head that feeds into her suicidal thoughts. This voice tells her she is a terrible mother and that there is only one way out. Alejandra also begins to see a strange figure lurking in dark corners. She starts to think that this being isn't a hallucination, but a very real entity that wants to harm her and her children. With the help of a curandera, Alejandra learns more of her ancestry and the possibility of a generational curse that has been affecting the women in her family for centuries.

WHY IT DIDN'T WORK FOR ME
La Llorona is a story I grew up hearing (belonging to the folklore of many Latin American countries), so despite my genuine intrigue, I can't say this book met any of my expectations.

To put it simply: I didn't enjoy the writing and plot execution. I found the writing to be scattered, like it didn't know what it wanted to be. The metaphors and similes made cringe and felt extremely forced. The dialogue was always so overly convenient and made the characters feel one dimensional.
The plot was somehow incredibly basic and convoluted at the same time. I can appreciate Alejandra's character arc, truly I can, but it wasn't enough to make me enjoy this. I wanted a horror retelling of La Llorona, but it missed the mark for me. I get creeped out pretty easily, but the boredom was so great that I didn't find anything overly chilling, and the way La Llorona is integrated felt very unimportant. I can also appreciate the exploration of Mexican culture (e.g. Día de los Muertos), but even those elements fell short in the grand scheme of things. They felt thrown into the story at random times when convenient.

I would never wanna put anyone off to reading something that genuinely intrigues them, so I hope my experience isn't the case for the majority of those that read this.

TW: suicide, blood, gore, murder, abuse

Thanks so much to NetGalley and Random House Publishing Group Ballantine for an advanced reader copy in exchange for my honest review.

The Haunting of Alejandra was a really great read. It kept me engaged and I really enjoyed the story. I wasn’t anticipating the separate timelines and point of views, but I think it definitely worked with the story. There’s a lot of emotion in this book that I also wasn’t expecting, it’s much heavier than I thought it would be, but it was still a great read. I also really loved how the Mexican folklore and culture was woven through the story.

Thank you for the ARC of “The Haunting of Alejandra.” The cover, the premise, and my interest in learning about La Llorona caught my attention with this one. I appreciated elements about it: the struggle that Alejandra went through as a mother and wife and that I learned about la llorona and Mexican culture. The story, though, felt repetitive in many instances and I found my attention waning. I’ve given it 3 stars for its message about tradition, women empowerment, seeking help and fighting for what you love.

Loved the Mexican folklore, learned so much. Excellent characters and use of timelines and POV. Looking forward to more from this author. Thanks to Netgalley for the opportunity to read this book

This is the perfect book for the upcoming spooky season! Alejandra was such a unique character and I felt so close to her the entire time I was reading. This was such an original horror book and a really nice spin on La Llorona legend that most people already know about. I recommend for any horror fans.

Motherhood may be filled with struggles that seem universal, but a generational curse adding to those struggles pushes the women in one family to extremes in V. Castro’s The Haunting of Alejandra.

Overwhelmed with taking care of three young children without consistent support from her husband who frequently travels for work, Alejandra is struggling to cope with the demands of everyone else upon her while also trying to make space for, and assert, what she might want out of life; frightened by a dark voice and eerie visions of a woman in white, La Llorona, haunting her with increasing frequency, Alejandra begins therapy to try to work out what’s going on with her and hopefully uncover who she is in the process. Through her sessions, she explores her family history – or at least what she knows of it – with the limited details she’s learned from her biological mother; delving further back in her maternal family line, she learns that the dark and despairing experiences she’s had ties her closely with the women who came before her, but the pain isn’t all she inherited – she also has their strength and courage, which she’ll need if she’s to banish La Llorona for good.

Featuring generational trauma taking the form of a curse and using the legend of La Llorona, a compelling story filled with familial bonds, born and found, and living authentically emerges through dark, occasionally gory, events in a befittingly atmosphere of uncertainty. While building a narrative that incorporates the overlooked voices and lives of her ancestors, Alejandra’s battle and confrontation with what’s haunting her in her deepest moments of despair slowly reveals a tapestry of lives with similar experiences, demonstrating the power of being afforded the option and ability to choose your own path in life and to have an identity discrete from merely mother or wife. With so many perspectives offered from different women across eras and cultures, there was an abundance of information to be shared and while there was necessity for most of it, at times it came across as forced, through unrealistic dialogue a bit too heavy on information, to propel the story along instead of being intricately woven together a bit more subtly and the order of the backstories didn’t seem to have much logic that was contextually-linked with what Alejandra was enduring at the moment outside of affirming not being alone in what she experienced. As the multiple women’s lives are explored, what haunts them all in the guise of La Llorona is also provided with an opportunity to make itself and its desires known, providing a disconcerting feeling to the overall story that keep things unsettling and eerie.

Overall, I’d give it a 3.5 out of 5 stars.

*I received a copy of the book from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Amazing haunting. This hit the core of my soul., as a mother and a wife. It’s supernatural haunting but also has the haunting of family trauma. Exactly what I expected from V. Castro. Highly Recommend.

What a read. This powerful multigenerational story of a family curse that has embodies the La Llorona horror. It is terrifying, real, and honors the strength of women. For me this had some Twin Peaks vibes combined with just creepy. I think more stories need to portray the very real postpartum/ depression experience of women.