Piñata was just what I was looking for in a book. I wanted something unique, culturally significant and terrifying. It checked all those boxes for me.

A possession story of sorts, but not the typical Exorcist, projectile vomiting pea soup kind. Carmen takes her two daughters along on a work trip to Mexico. She wants them to see where she came from and to grasp their sprawling heritage. Luna (the youngest daughter) comes across a “piñata” but not the colorful kind filled with candy. This Piñata becomes an obsession that morphs into possession.

I love learning about different cultures and the information regarding the Nahua and their belief system was fascinating.

This was a terrifying book. A mother in peril trying to protect her daughters from something not-of-this-world is scary and something you don’t want to think too deeply about. This book opened that door and shoved you in face first.

Thank you so much to NetGalley and to Tor/ Pan Macmillan for giving the chance to read this incredible novel early! I am not always the biggest fan of horror—except when it includes visceral themes of colonialism, exploitation, retribution, and revenge. This book follows a single mother and architect who is leading the renovation of an old Abbey in Mexico, and she’s brought her young daughters with her from New York to experience their culture and heritage for the summer. Very quickly, however, a feeling of unease starts to grow as the signs of the country’s colonial legacy begins to show its poisonous impact on modern day—women are going missing, people are being taken advantage of, and people struggle to maintain their indigenous roots in a society that has suppressed it for generations. Although the story follows a true eldritch horror that stalks and possesses the excitable, open youngest daughter with the intention of seeking revenge for the genocide of its people, as the story progresses, it becomes clear that the horrors faced today are a direct product of the horrors inflicted on the past. As Yoltzi identifies the horrors as tzitzimimeh—Aztec goddesses of the stars and death borne from the ghosts of warrior women and those who have died in childbirth, existing at the intersection between life and death—it was more heartbreaking than anything to realize along with her that these goddesses became twisted by revenge, but only truly sought to protect their descendants. While not all good horror must connect to real life, historical, or social injustices, it does lend another visceral, nauseating facet to the story because we well know the real world consequences of brutal history. Also, in line with the themes of colonialism and retribution, I appreciated that the song Yoltzi sings is never translated from Nahuatl. It is made clear that this song is not for us to know. This book gripped me from the opening chapters and I stayed up late into the night to be able to finish it, all the while jumping at the sound of crickets outside my window. This was an excellent addition to the genre and I cannot wait to see what the author does next.

I really dug this take on a possession story. The Prologue immediately sets the pace of the story and what to expect-- a brutal, bloody kind of horror with a sharp social commentary on the effects of colonialism on the indigenous peoples of Mexico by the hands of Spain and the Catholic church. I found myself constantly researching Aztec mythology and the disturbing history of the genocide that occurred. This is a inteeeense possession story via ancient forces that is filled with nightmarish horrors. A seriously interesting page-turner!

“It’s such a strange thing, even perverse, to make children break something pretty to eat its entrails,”

Piñata by Leopould Gout
Publication Date: March 14, 2023

QUICK SUMMARY 🖊️
Inspired by the true and horrific history.
Carmen is back in her home country of Mexico with her two daughters while she works on rebuilding an old cathedral, being a woman is a roadblock in and of itself. Within short period she finds herself being sent home after an accident but something seems to have come home with them.

FINAL THOUGHTS 💭
This was one where I found myself at times thinking .. where is this going? It was a little slow to start, but the history written into this book kept me going with the story. And ending up loving it.

This was a beautifully haunting story of rich culture and what happens when you mess with history instead of leaving it alone.

I thought this book was so good. The beginning was a bit slow for me but I get that its setting up everything. Creepy, eerie and heart stopping would be the words I use to describe this one.

I have mixed feelings about this book. I'll start with what I enjoyed. I absolutely loved the Náhuatl culture being the central part of the story. The representation of the culture and language was well done. It was refreshing to see Latin American Indigenous peoples represented, with actual accuracy of the traditions and beliefs. My favorite parts were all of the flash backs especially the beginning. I wish that there had been more flash backs or the novel in it's entirety had taken place during the conquistadors.

Now for what I wasn't keen on. The build up was entirely too slow. Too much time was wasted on building the story in unnecessary places. The addition of the socially political aspects were completely over the top; to the point they seemed out of place in the horror novel. With the first half being too slow, the second half ended up being rushed. Some scenes needed more development and certain aspects of the story remained unclear. I really wanted to love this book as I was won over with the premise. I think if the story had taken place entirely in Mexico and the possession had been developed more, the novel would've been wonderful.

I was super excited to read this based on the synopsis alone. This was a horror novel about a possession. It was full of Mexican culture representation along with mesoamerican representation. I rated it 4 stars just because it is slow paced building up to the actual action but once you get there, it’s non-stop until the end. I would recommend it to all anyone who loves a good horror book. Thanks to NetGalley and Tor publishing for this ARC.

Slow burn horror novels are such an interesting thing. Initially I'm all like c'mon already, get to the good stuff because I know it's in here... but then once the good stuff finally gets going I'm all like whoaaaaa there, slow down, why are you in such a rush all of a sudden?!

Also, mothers, how well do you know your daughters?

In Pinata, we find ourselves following Carmen Sanchez and her daughters Izel and Luna as they travel to Mexico so that Carmen can keep an eye on the renovation that's taking place on the site of an old Abbey. Carmen's excited to introduce her kids to some of thier cultural history, but things take a weird turn when some scaffolding comes loose and exposes a hidden alcove containing some ancient clay pots and other detritus. During the commotion Luna, ever the curious girl, sneaks one of the strange pots out of the room and manages to smuggle it back to their home in New York, unbeknownst to Carmen, when word of the accident at the abbey gets back to her boss.

Little by little, Luna begins to withdraw inside herself and strange things start to happen at a water's boil sort of pace. Small things that Carmen and Izel could easily brush aside without much second thought, like the sounds of Luna speaking to someone in her room when no one else is in there with her and the creepy drawings she's been sketching, soon become more worrisome until eventually there's too much to ignore, like waking up to a dog sized cricket at the foot of your bed, and uhm hello, NOW you realize that a very pissed off ancient entity is attempting to use your child's body as a gateway for the apocalypse? Really?!

While there were some head-shaking, eye-rolling, shoulder-shrugging moments of really bad parenting, it was quite a unique and wild ride. I see it being compared to both The Exorcist and A Headful of Ghosts and that's actually a pretty good way to describe this book. I was highly anticipating this one and it didn't let me down.

When a mother and her two daughters travel to Mexico for the mother’s job, they get way more than what they bargained for.
The plot was interesting and the book was very descriptive. You really get a sense of the characters, the surroundings, and the culture. It is a pretty slow burn and sometimes I found myself struggling to pay attention during certain parts because it kinda felt like a history lesson. Just wasn’t my cup of tea. But I did enjoy the book and the ending definitely went out with a bang.

Thank you, Netgalley and Publisher, for this Arc!

This is a slow starting horror that led me to a gruesome and brutal ending that I will not soon forget.

This story begins with a short intro covering a scene about the brutal colonization of an ancient people and continues to be very rich in Nahua culture. I loved this take on vengeance against this atrocity against a group of humans. It gives the story a strong backbone and lends credence to any questions of why certain things happen.

Carmen is going to Mexico as a lead architect for a remodel of an old abby. She brings her daughters, Izel and Luna, with her to introduce them to the culture they come from. Everything seems to be going fine until Luna is targeted for possession by spirits who lead to the horror to come. When she finds an ancient pinata, originally a gift to gods made out of clay and sealed with viscera inside it, she is officially possessed, and the horror truly begins.

I liked this book a lot. However, I felt like the dialogues and interactions between characters were a bit cut and dry and did not have the energy I enjoy more while reading.

Overall, a very creepy and also, culture rich, read!

Out March 14, 2023!

PIÑATA is a horror novel that really got under my skin practically from the jump and then held my attention until the very end. I'm someone who is a bit hit or miss when it comes to possession stories, but Leopoldo Gout takes the idea of possession and brings in Mexican folklore and mythology, as well as a very dark and painful history regarding colonialism from Spain and the Catholic Church, and comes up with a unique possession tale that is terrifying and filled with anger and sorrow. I loved how Gout intertwines themes of genocide and colonial oppression with modern day Mexico, not just in the way that tween Luna is possessed by an ancient, angry spirit, but also how we see the reverberations of colonial violence in everyday, very real things, be it violence, racism and colorism, and loss of culture. I also really loved the tense and slow build of this story, with things starting as unsettling and turning into full blow visceral and gorey scares. I will say that the pacing does seem a bit off, because while we have a very slow build up, a LOT happens in the last fourth of the book and I think it happens a bit fast and haphazardly.

Pacing issues aside, I really really enjoyed PIÑATA. Horror fans must give it a go.

Thanks so much to Netgalley and Tor Publishing for the ARC copy of this book.

I loved this book! The Mexican mythology was so fascinating to learn about and the writing style and pace were perfect. The horror portrayed in this novel was excellent and I really think this book would make a great movie. I personally would love to see the visuals of the ancient demons come to life along with the cray body horror and possession described in the novel.

Overall a great story, compelling characters, and great horror made this a really great read.

As a slow-burn horror novel, Piñata really shines in the parallels between possession and cultures destroyed by colonialist violence.

Did I enjoy it? Yes, I did! The thing is, though, and I should have been aware of this going in, I don’t find possession stories scary in the slightest. Yet, I was swayed to read it by the description and the cover (which is gorgeous). As such, while I loved certain aspects of the novel, I didn’t find it frightened me.

Yet, while the book wasn’t scary (to me), I loved the link between the reason for the possession and the colonialist history of Mexico. The cultural and historical aspects are a major facet of the story so much so that I learned things while also being engrossed in the plot. This focus on colonialist violence and theft gave the reason behind the possession a real gravitas and plausibility.

I also liked the characters. Carmen is being pulled in so many directions as a single mom and a woman in a male-dominated field. For a male writer, Gout really nailed not only the sexism women experience in their daily lives but the fears mothers have and how these fears can compile and overwhelm. Unlike a haunted house story where you wonder why the people don’t just leave, when Carmen notices weird stuff happening, she has valid reasons for not getting the hell out of dodge right away. It made sense. Everything in the book makes sense. It's very well crafted.

I thought Izel and Luna were great as well. In Izel, it was nice to see a normal, loving teenage girl, and Luna was adorable. Two other characters, Yoltzi and Quauhtli, are great as well.

Along with it not being scary, though, the prose didn’t work well for me. Perhaps it’s because I read an ARC, but there were a lot of long-winded explanations that could have been cut down, and the overuse of the word “suddenly” kind of irked me. (The word is often a crutch that should be used sparingly as it can be replaced with a transition phrase 90% of the time.)

I also found that the story dragged a bit in the center and a lot of the horror stuff is almost rushed in the last quarter. A pacing issue, but a minor one.

One thing I really appreciated about the book was how the spread of missing and murdered women in Mexico does not turn out to be part of the supernatural element. I was a bit worried about that, as I would have been frustrated if the onus of femicide had been taken off society’s hands, but this isn’t the case. This is not a spoiler, but something I just wanted to bring up that I appreciated.

I think Gout should write a historical fiction or a historical fantasy about the pre-colonial era because the scenes set in the past and his attention to detail are fantastic.

Overall, I recommend the novel, especially if you love possession stories - as this one comes at it from a different angle - and if you love it when the motivations behind a horror creature or monster has a rich and detailed backstory.

1.5 stars

Hundreds of years ago, when Spanish colonists brutalized and decimated ancient Nahuatl and Aztec culture, they could never imagine the immense hatred and vengeance that would survive their unforgiving influence.

Fast forward to modern day. Single mother Carmen Sanchez and her two daughters, Luna and Izel, are in Mexico for Carmen’s job; she is renovating an old Catholic church and turning it into a luxury hotel for tourists. Carmen is both thrilled and intimidated by the scale of the project, but excited about giving her girls the opportunity to experience their Mexican culture firsthand. Precocious younger daughter Luna soaks up the language and history, eagerly interacting with anyone and everyone who will listen. Teenage Izel, on the other hand, would much rather be back in the States with her friends.

After a terrible and bizarre accident occurs on the church’s construction site, Carmen is pulled from the project and the Sanchez family heads home. But something returns with them - an entity full of rage and spite that seeks the ultimate revenge. If Carmen and a handful of others don’t find a solution, the world as they know it will come to a bloody, violent end.

If that write-up hooked you, then you understand why I was so eager to get my hands on this ARC. Unfortunately the story went south really fast for me after the prologue. The prologue, which was gory, intense, and morbidly satisfying, is wildly entertaining compared to everything that came afterward, which plodded painfully along. The writing was also borderline insulting; it was amateur and full of redundancies:

“She stood up but hesitated as to whether she should take her coffee with her or leave it there so it would cool down.” Wow, the suspense. (Spoiler alert: She takes it with her. I think. Actually the detail was so insignificant I don’t remember.)

“More than ominous, they seemed to be an omen themselves.” …What.

It’s evident that Gout has a wealth of knowledge concerning Mexican history, and the premise allows for plenty of horror tropes to be explored in new, exciting ways. But it seems like there was just too much content to cover and it became overwhelming. The combination of stilted writing, the vast amount of information trying to be conveyed, and the narrative spin added to that historical information ultimately created one jumbled mess of a novel.

Thanks to NetGalley for providing an eARC in exchange for an honest review.

4.75 out of 5 stars

Well, hell. Where do I even begin? The story is preceded by the horrific events of long ago, when Spanish friars are violently forcing their religion on the Nahua of mesoamerica. A child sees her brother die brutally for refusing to destroy a tlapalxoktli - the original piñata of the Nahua composed of blood, skin, hair, and organs. To them it was a sacred vessel. When it is her turn to destroy it, she runs and hides the tlapalxoktli.

Fast forward to 2027. Carmen is a single mom raising her two children, Izel and Luna. She lives in New York and has brought her mother up from Mexico to live with them. Both of them work to make ends meet - Carmen as an architect and her mother, Alma, at a hospital. Now, Carmen has finally been offered an opportunity that will push her career to new heights: to renovate an old cathedral in Tulancingo, Mexico to a fancy hotel. Taking her daughters with her to learn about their heritage, Carmen finds that while we has memories of Mexico and knowledge of how things work (the dangers to women, the tendency to be extorted even by businesses, the general feeling that women are not bosses) did not prepare her for the reality.

Izel spends a lot of time on her phone and is upset that she was unable to go to a theater camp with her friends, and mostly ignores her mother and sister. Luna is a bright and brilliant and joyful child who loves learning new things and talking with people. But all that brightness and innocence is shining in a darkness that has been waiting for a vessel of its own.

This book was terrifying and also a wealth of knowledge of the history of the Nahuatl, Mexicas, Mayas, and more. I was so captivated by both the story and the characters. The imagery, though. I was able to see so much of the story with a clarity that added to the horror. I am stunned at how the author was able to move seamlessly from reality, sometimes mundane day-to-day activities of renovating a building, to a scary surreal between-worlds dream-like trance.

At some points during the story, I almost thought that there was going to be a connection between the tzitzimitl and the missing women, but that was another glaring accusation of how humans can be so brutal to other humans.

I am a fan. I will definitely be reading more by Gout and I am hoping for a follow-up? Even if not a sequel, perhaps something that takes place in the same storyline? ♥

Piñata
By Leopoldo Gout
Publisher: Tor Nightfire
Publish Date: March 14, 2023

What you need to know:
Carmen, single mother to Luna and Izel, is an architect who has been assigned to renovate an abbey in Mexico, where she herself grew up. She brings her daughters along for the trip, hoping to share with them some of their heritage. To her dismay, she is treated as inferior to her workers being a woman in this completely different culture, is overcome with anxiety for her daughters’ safety due to the number of missing and murdered girls in the area, and struck with an unrelenting fear after being approached by a local Nahua woman who has the gift of seeing into one’s soul. When ancient Mexican mythology infuses into present day with the vengeance of the scorned souls of the dead, Carmen’s family becomes the center of a possible ancient apocalypse.

My reading experience:
I was hooked on this book immediately! The initial setting in Mexico was very intriguing to me. The cultural differences, the way the characters interacted with one another, and the introduction and gradual revealing of ancient Mexican mythology throughout was fascinating. The visual descriptions were incredible! Gout’s use of words painted a vivid picture in my mind while reading. My curiosity was so piqued regarding the ancient mythology, that I stopped quite a few times to look up more information about it.

In short, I loved this book!
Constant fear and impending doom? Yes.
Blood, gore, and death? Yes.
Ancient spirit possession? Yes
Should you read this? Absolutely, yes!

Thank you Netgalley for the ARC in exchange of a book review.

Not my type of novel, writing was a bit too flowery for my taste. Things could have been explained a bit differently to attract more readers. A bit of a slow read for me, maybe an audiobook would make the reading experience a bit helpful and enjoyable.

Loved the plot of the novel and the gothic atmosphere it was producing. I can see how readers might love this type of book. I definitely know which type of readers I can recommend this to.

Piñata did a lot of things well but for some reason I didn't quite connect with it. I loved the prologue, it hooked me immediately. Violent. I think the best parts of the book were the violent scenes. I also liked all the bug scenes. It wasn't very scary for a horror novel but there was a lot of creepy Mexican folklore that I did enjoy.

The rest of it was fine but it did seem to plod along a little at times. There was a lot about how difficult it would be to raise a child when all this crazy stuff is going down that might connect with parents more than childless me. Most of the book is set more in the real world dealing with the crazy stuff than it did with the crazy stuff itself. I would have liked to have read a little less normality.

I think this movie would make a better movie than a book.

Pinata is likely going to be a top read for me this year. It deserves a horror spot light on it because of the horrors in which it speaks about paired with the visceral imagery.
First, this book was written by Leopoldo Gout, who is a film director, producer, author, and painter. This shows in how he writes. It plays out like a movie with the rising and falling in action.
My big love for this book is the acknowledgement of how colonization is a horror in and of itself. It discusses many attributes surrounding colonization, but I genuinely believe a good hold of the horror in this book is this recognition.
10 out of 10 would recommend and will definitely be buying for the library!