Mariana Enriquez packs an emotional punch within these short stories and brilliantly uses gothic and horror themes to provide social commentary on Latin America. A great short story collection for horror fans.

Thank you to Netgalley and Random House Publishing Group for the digital galley in exchange for my honest review.

Mariana Enriquez does it again with her third collection of horrific short stories. These are the standard I hold all other collections to.

Grateful to NetGalley and Random House for letting me read these stories a couple months early, they're timely as they are thoughtful, truly terrifying and tragic. This is also the only collection of stories I've rated as high. I've consistently loved Mariana's ability to hold me in a place of total suspense while highlighting crucial socioeconomic issues and this was no exception. A Sunny Place for Shady People feels like Mariana at her best -- but of course when isn't she? An easy 5/5

A Sunny Place for Shady People is the latest short story collection by Mariana Enríquez to be published in English, in a translation by Megan McDowell, who had already translated earlier volumes by the author.

Readers who are familiar with the style, approach and concerns of Enríquez will find themselves in very recognisable territory. As in her earlier books, contemporary Argentina serves as a setting to the author’s brand of weird fiction. It is a setting haunted by societal ills, syncretic occult rituals, criminality and violence – but also marked unexpected oases of beauty. Against this backdrop, Enríquez reworks tropes of traditional Gothic fiction (haunted houses, uncanny children) as well as elements of urban horror typical of scary movies and popular culture. It is a mixture which I find very effective. However, I did get the feeling that Enríquez has found a successful formula and keeps revisiting it. In fact, if I have a reservation about this latest collection it’s that this volume does not really present any development when compared to previous works by the author.

3.5*

https://endsoftheword.blogspot.com/2024/07/A-Sunny-Place-for-Shady-People-Mariana-Enriquez.html

The kind of creepy that seems into your bones like the cold...
Mariana Enriquez has created a book of 12 stories that will push your ability to read a book alone.
Commentary on forced migration, marginalized people, the plight of women and political and sociological criticism is couched within some of the scariest ideas I've read. Set in sunny Argentina, this is a chilly addition for your Fall horror reading!#randomhouse #asunnyplaceforshadypeople #marianaenriquez #argentina #horror

i really enjoyed all these short stories. this was my first book by this author and i wasn’t disappointed

thank you netgalley for the e-arc!

These short stories evoke Stephen King in his prime. They range from a little spooky and thought-provoking, to downright terrifying. The level of character and scene illustration is done with such efficiency yet fully fleshed out; each story is tight, and no word is wasted. A+++

“The night is dark and full of terrors”

In her most recent collection, Enríquez brings readers twelve new short stories full of supernatural horrors. Many of the stories focus on death and the aftermath, transformation of the human body and spirit, and female pain and suffering. The stories were unique but the tropes became slightly repetitive.

A couple of my favorite stories were “My Sad Dead”, the opening story, which is about a woman developing a spiritualistic ability to communicate with ghosts after her mother passes; and “Julie”, a story about a woman finding acceptance while her form grows larger and her spirit friends grow louder.

Enríquez has a unique gift of vividly painting Argentinian landscapes, inviting readers in to the beauty and the grittiness of the surrounding neighborhoods, and it is one of my favorite aspects of her previous work. Most of the stories here, also, take place in Argentina but as some other readers have commented, they feel Westernized for her American readers (even I felt it as someone living in California). The strongest example of this was the titular story which takes place in Los Angeles and managed to make me feel incredibly uneasy but not in a good way. In this story, Enríquez exploits the Elisa Lam case for the sake of a short story, describing her corpse as “rotten and swollen” and it felt incredibly unsavory and in very poor taste.

These stories were certainly entertaining though I found myself wanting more depth from a lot of them. Enríquez is often associated with ambiguity when it comes to her short stories but many of these simply felt unfinished or rushed to end.

Lots and lots of body horror to be found within these pages; mutations and abnormalities of the skin and body, turning people into “monsters”. It seemed like this collection was more focused on gross-out factor rather than the brilliant, Shirley Jackson-esque style—the subtle, creeping dread and paranoia—of Enriquez’s first collection “Things We Lost in the Fire” which may be the preferred mode of horror for some readers but not me.

While I enjoyed many of the stories in this collection, I clearly found a lot of qualms with them as well. It wouldn’t be the piece that I recommend readers to start with if they are wanting to get into Enríquez’s work or Latin American horror.

Thank you Random House Publishing and NetGalley for the digital copy in exchange for an honest review! Available 09/17/2024!

Summary: A diabolical collection of stories featuring achingly human characters whose lives intertwine with ghosts, goblins, and the macabre, by “one of Latin America’s most exciting authors” (Silvia Moreno-Garcia)

Review: Perfect spooky fall read. Definitely not for the faint of heart. Mariana's writing is raw, strong and shocking... in the bestest of ways.

She also portrays Latin people in a very real light. I feel represented! Which is always a beautiful thing.

These short stories are a great introduction to Latin American horror, and to Argentine horror in particular. Most are focused on women--women who are threats, women who haunt, women who escape, women who listen to the dead, each one unique and fascinating and chilling. Many of the stories focus on agency, while others examine family trauma; all demonstrate Enriquez's deft and evocative writing, There is a lot of body horror, so fi t hat's not your thing you may not enjoy these, but for most horror fans, these knock it out of the park.

First of all, thanks to Netgalley and Random House/Hogarth for letting me read an eARC of A Sunny Place for Shady People by Mariana Enriquez. A Sunny Place for Shady People was the first short story collection by Mariana Enriquez I read, and I have to say it was absolutely incredible. All 12 of the stories slowly simmered with dread and unease. I especially loved Night Birds, and it's a blend of terror and fantasy as you deal with the possibility of a mind unraveling. Highly recommended for readers who love horror and dark fantasy.

In A Sunny Place for Shady People, Mariana Enriquez crafts narratives that blur the lines between reality and the fantastic, channeling a sort of raw, punk-infused literary version of say, kooky dreamer Remedios Varo's bizarre surrealist visions. But where Varo's paintings offer enigmatic, haunting cosmological qualities, Enriquez's stories present a more visceral, earthier, street-level take on the surreal. The characters often come across as emotionally distant, and this coolness amplifies the otherworldly atmosphere throughout the collection. It's as if they're slightly removed from their bizarre circumstances, mirroring our own sense of disorientation as readers. Enriquez's prose is sharp and unflinching, describing surreal and often disturbing scenarios with a matter-of-fact tone that packs a punch. From urban ghosts to body horror that defies explanation, each story pushes our imagination to its limits, much like Varo's paintings, but with an edgy, contemporary twist. The characters' emotional distance might not be everyone's cup of tea, but it's this very quality that allows Enriquez to dig into deeper themes of societal dysfunction, historical trauma, and personal alienation. The surreal elements aren't just for show - they're powerful metaphors for the often inexplicable nature of human experience. A Sunny Place for Shady People isn't a cozy read, but it's definitely a compelling one.

I’d already call myself a Mariana Enriquez fan and I liked these even more than her other short stories i’ve read. Very strong collection. Each story felt attention grabbing. 4.5 stars.

4.5, I really enjoyed this, it did not let down my very high expectations. I really enjoyed and gave 4 stars to The Dangers of Smoking in Bed and have been waiting for another short story collection from Enriquez since. Overall I think the the collections are similar enough for fans of the first to be able to enjoy this one as well, but I do think they are different enough to be unique and worth the individual reads. A Sunny Place for Shady People took "disturbing" and ran with it and I mean that in the best way possible. It was beautifully grotesque and off-putting which was my favorite thing about Dangers of Smoking in Bed so I am very happy that this one was even more so. I think this one was more consistent and I really enjoyed most of the stories. My personal favorites would have to be Julie, Metamorphosis, and Different Colors Made of Tears though.

I now understand why Mariana Enriquez is one of Paul Tremblay’s favorite authors. Every story in this collections a banger. They all wind around to something horrific and end leaving you so frightened that you don’t know if you can take another one. I like the themes she seems to focus on: parenthood, intergenerational conflict, bad decisions turning into worse decisions. Plus lots of body horror! This is as good as a short story collection can get. Can’t wait to read more of her work.

After enjoying Our Share of Night, I just knew I was going to fall in love with Mariana’s short fiction as well.

These stories are extremely dark and disturbing and will leave you thinking about them even after you’ve finished the book. Each one was unique and she just has that power to draw you in and then pierce your heart with dark tale that will leave your jaw on the floor.

This is a lovely and frightening collection of stories about monsters and people, which are oftentimes the same thing. Mariana knocked it out of the park with this.

This might be my favourite of Mariana Enriquez's short story collections. It is her most thematic to date and some of the stories genuinely scared me. Whatever you do, don't accidentally skip to the end. It's worth it.

I think the stories in this one got stronger as it went along. My favorites, or the ones that stuck out to me and creeped me out the most, were The Refrigerator Factory and Different Colors Made of Tears. One thing Enriquez does incredibly well is body horror, and she goes all out in this collection. If you've liked her other short story collections, I think you'll like this one as well.

Thank you to NetGalley for an ARC of A Sunny Place for Shady People.

First, I love the title, and second, I love the cover.

I've never read any of the author's previous works before so I went into this with an open mind, hoping for dark, macabre, and dreary.

I was left with mixed emotions after reading this.

On the one hand, I liked some of the stories, the ghosts, the hauntings, the sorrow, anger, and regret the characters in these stories live with, are burdened with, and have to deal with for their mortal lives.

I wasn't spooked by any of the stories, but a few of them did creep me out.

On the other hand, I didn't like the author's writing style.

Is she against paragraphs? Is her editor?

So many of the stories had long, long paragraphs with no breaks in between. Is this deliberate? Part of her writing style?

It was distracting and made it hard to follow the narrative since my eyes had to keep tracking and moving across the page with no pauses.

Also, I was confused why one of the stories referenced the Elisa Lam case.

All the other stories related to Argentina and its locals and history, but why include a short story based on a true crime?

I didn't see the point, or at least, I didn't get the point.

Was it how the author wanted to honor the victim? That's not the vibe I got. The story didn't feel disrespectful but it didn't feel right, either.

I liked the theme of the stories but the writing style and format left much to be desired. I may try another book by the author. Maybe she's just not for me.

A doctor living near the city slums can speak with ghosts of violent crime victims. An Argentine journalist flies to Los Angeles to investigate an unsolved murder and confronts past losses. A woman contracts a bizarre facial paralysis seemingly related to her estranged mother’s suicide. A schizophrenic woman’s family returns to Argentina to cure her sexual obsession with some “invisible friends”. An incurably ill young woman and her emotionally unbalanced sister live in a town where the spirits of doomed women reappear as nightbirds. After surgery to remove a benign fibroid tumor, a woman wants it reinserted in her body. A depressed man and his boyfriend explore an abandoned detention facility and confront a torturous ghost from the past. A sadistic man whose wife left him inflicts pain on the couture dresses she abandoned, much to the terror of the women who buy them. A lonely makeup artist who thinks she is dying of cancer is visited by spirits of women who actually are. A woman haunted by a fatal secret she has kept since her youth is finally confronted by a ghost from the past. An urban couple spend time in a rural village and meet a local artist who is not what they imagined. Social workers on the streets of Buenos Aires encounter two mysterious children with black eyes and bad intentions.

So go the plots of the twelve stories in A Sunny Place for Shady People, the third collection of short fiction by Argentine author Mariana Enríquez to be translated into English. These tales follow a similar pattern to her first two books (Things We Lost in the Fire, The Dangers of Smoking in Bed) in the way they seek to combine macabre elements—horror, even—with pointed social commentary to tell very human stories in which there are seldom any winners. (Enríquez also wrote Our Share of Night, a lengthy novel exploring very similar themes, but producing powerful short stories seems to be her strong suit.) For the most part, however, the tales here offer a somewhat different mix of those elements, with the horrific aspects being less prominently featured in the narratives. In fact, unlike those earlier books in which horror was used as an obvious metaphor for the myriad social ills that beset the author’s country, here the unsettling elements seemed far more disconnected. Perhaps that is because Argentina’s Dirty War, in which so many citizens were “disappeared”, is now fifty years in the past and might not be as compelling of a theme to the present day reader.

On balance, I did enjoy reading some of these stories although I found the collection as a whole to be quite uneven and a little repetitive of Enríquez’ previous work. My favorite tales (“The Refrigerator Cemetery”, “Black Eyes”) came near the end, as I found most of the material in the front of the book to be largely forgettable, albeit well-crafted. I am not sure this is a fair way to judge a new book, but this one definitely suffers from a comparison to her previous efforts, which provided far more effective combinations of all the themes that make this author such a talented writer. And, without question, Enríquez can be a gifted storyteller, in terms of both her compassionate characterizations and the sublime prose she uses to capture everyday situations in creatively twisted ways. Finally, I was a little confused about the book’s title, which is also the name of the second story. It alludes to Somerset Maugham’s famous quote from over a century ago in which he referred to the French Riviera as “a sunny place for shady people”. That was a clever depiction of the social conditions in Monaco at the time, but it is hard to understand how it applies to any of these stories, which are about as far from being sunny as it gets.