Thank you Michael Nivea and NetGalley for the e-arc.

The premise of this sounded so interesting and had so much potential. Unfortunately, I felt the book didn’t live up to expectations. Whilst the plot was (mostly) interesting, it was either the translation or the writing style that held it back. The overuse of parentheses was annoying and several scenes should’ve been cut. I had to dnf this. Perhaps with a better translation and a fresh edit, it would be in the 4 star range.

This was way too much for me. I like weird. I like esoteric. I like complex. This was just... a lot. Even for me. I can't even really explain what happens in this book. I liked the first half a lot more but it devolved into this indistinguishable chaos in the second half. I'm not ashamed to say that I'm simply not smart enough for this book. This took me over a week to read even though it's just a little over 200 pages, simply because there was so much going on. There will be people that this works for. Unfortunately, I am not one of them. I was really excited for this and I wouldn't say I was disappointed, but instead, overwhelmed. 3 stars. Thanks so much to NetGalley and to Astra for the e-arc.

This book left me feeling uncertain—it’s definitely unique, but I’m still processing it. Set in a dystopian future where giant mosquitos attend school, epidemics are equated with wealth, and biospheres are ordered like fast food, the story follows Dengue Boy. The narrative switches between multiple POVs and timelines, including one told through the lens of a popular video game. While there’s a significant amount of world-building, I felt it didn’t fully pay off. I found myself wanting the world and its concepts to be more thoroughly fleshed out, even if that meant a longer book. Ultimately, it was too gory and hyper-sexualized for my personal taste, which made it hard for me to fully connect with the story.

Thank you to NetGalley and Astra Publishing for sending me this arc!

A gross, squalid horror dystopia about a giant anthropomorphic mosquito. I wish I hadn't chosen it and only finished because it was so short.

DNF @ 15%. The writing feels way too overwrought for my tastes and the concept is more farcical than I was hoping for. I appreciate being granted the ARC, but I’m not feeling this one at all.

Fantastic! Dengue Boy is hands down the best, most deranged fever dream I've ever had the pleasure of reading!

Nieva’s writing is hilarious, poignant, and fast-paced. If you're craving a strange dystopian setting where climate change has made the world largely uninhabitable, the idea of winter is a tourist attraction, and the elite has created a market for viruses, not to mention the fact that the main character is a mutant mosquito/human, give this a read!

I really liked this one, but the ending did get away from me a bit.

The characters were fresh and exciting. The interweaving of their storylines was COOL. The transition between perspectives was flawless, which I appreciate because some books don’t do this well at all and it totally takes away from the books readability.

This is similar in themes and vibes to Mood Swings, which was one of my favorites this year. Unlike Mood Swings, though, the concept of the plot got a bit too existential for my own comprehension. This might be a lost-in-translation thing, but I digress.

Overall, I recommend picking this one up for sure for its novelty and scope!

Thanks to @astrahousebooks and @netgalley for the digital review copy!

Dengue Boy by Michael Nieva

Argentina. The Carribean Pampas, beyond the year 2197, to be more precise. A world lovingly crafted by Michael Nieva, about a mosquito boy struggling to fit into society succombs to quench the thirst for blood and revenge. The narrative discusses climate change and its effects on the economy, which are regulated by large corporations that aim to take advantage of the symptoms of the plague. These big businesses are using the stock market for monetary gain, control, and power. All sounding a bit familiar of modern-day life and told through the life of a hybrid human without a clue as to how they came to be.

I vividly remember the first time watching “A Clockwork Orange.” I was mesmerized at it’s boldness and ruthlessness. The thought of “what am I watching?” streaming through my consciousness. I credit Michael Nieva for going to that place of insanity. I reached for this book, the cover art tantalizing me. Intriguing! This tale was so much more than what I had first pictured. Shrewdly pieced together, layer after layer of sci-fi glory packaged up into the thorax of a human with bug anatomy. A novel that gave me that specific feeling of not quite understanding the sum of all its parts. Rereading important passages to confirm my full understanding. Moving like the gears of a clock, grinding away my resistance to misconceptions, I was challenged. The story takes grip, holding on to my emotional fragility. I am slowly introduced into a world of cruelty. The author is playing on my natural feelings to root for the underdog and stand up for others who no longer have the will to fight, only to witness a devastation I had no idea was coming. Not satisfied with my ego bruised, Nieva goes for the jugular and proceeds to toy with what is left of my pride. I had no clue, is what I kept uttering...

My apologies to Michael Nieva; I had gravely misjudged the potential and magnitude of this book. What you brought forth far surpassed my expectations. A fantastic world wrought with deception, treachery, and redemption awaits. I am giving this 4.5 stars and rounding up to 5 stars. This is something special. It may not be everyone’s cup of tea, but those with an affinity for the weird and obscure will surely be happy.

Many thanks to Astra Publishing House for the ARC through NetGalley. This review is voluntary and contains my honest opinion.

Absolutely absurd, over the top, grotesque and gory!

A24 producers need to get their hands on this one.

Set in a world where the polar ice caps have completely melted and parts of them are available to view in museums. Where corruption, ultra-capitalism, and deadly viruses run the markets. And where a life size mosquito boy has a trans awakening and terrorizes the planet IRL and via an AI gaming device. You can feel the heat from the boiling ocean and the splash of blood and guts on your face in this acid trip fever dream of a book.

It’s really a lot at parts but I found myself LAUGHING out loud at the ridiculousness and cleverness. It’s sci-fi, Kafka-esque, a wild read. The cover kicks ass too.

Thank you Astra and NetGalley for the digital ARC of this book.

This absurdist satire is disorienting in all the best of ways. I don’t call it absurdist lightly; the jacket copy references Cronenberg and Kafka, but my reading experience led me more directly to Ionesco, the father of the theatre of the absurd. Obviously this isn’t formatted as a play, but the distinct chapters that move across characters, the surreal nature of relationship and transformation, the impossible bending of time and space to point at something more fundamentally true, these all put me in the same mental and emotional space as Ionesco and other absurdist artists.

The story is exploring greed, manifest most resolutely through capitalism, and the ways it sucks the life-force of not just humanity but the very earth itself. It is exploring environmental destruction, addiction, artificial simulation (and stimulation), manufactured-disaster-capitalism, inheritance, and human relationships through time and space. This isn’t a deep-dive into character, but the characters are vehicles for various segments of the disillusioned and destroyed population—the monster, the capitalist, the bully, the pampered—and while the characters are given some inner life what they are really good at is highlighting how a breakdown of human relationship and compassion, exacerbated by unapologetic greed and avarice, affects everyone. The world-building is unhinged and perfect, setting the scene in vacation-brochure clarity, painting a very vivid picture of the world and yet always separating us from it through a layer of artifice. The writing is simple and direct but gets more fevered and discordant as space-time and reality become more permeable, an elegy of euphemism and dissonant metaphors. The dynamic between really simple, direct, declarative language and the absurdity of what is being described is a stylistic touch that is both effective and often hilarious. There are surface-level ideas that are easy to grasp and play with but then folded into this absurdist reality are myriad other ideas, giving the reader an immense amount to sit back and contemplate, such as the very real danger that caring for one another poses to an autocratic-capitalist state.

This novel is consistently funny while serving as a penetrating exploration into where we, as humans living on this one Earth, have been and, more frighteningly, where we seem likely to be going. Very much absurd in style and tone it certainly won’t be for everyone, but for those that vibe with the symbolic and the surreal this short novel is a decadent blood feast.

I want to thank the author, the publisher Astra Publishing House, and NetGalley, who provided a complimentary eARC for review. I am leaving this review voluntarily.

I wanted to love this, but I just didn't unfortunately.

What I liked: The premise was very unique and certainly interesting. The way corporate greed and environmental issues were portrayed was compelling.

What I didn't like: High squick factor. At times the gore and profanity felt almost gratuitous. The writing (or translation?) felt choppy and inconsistent. I actually felt like it was poorly written in the first chapter, then thought overly verbose by the end.

Final thoughts: Although it didn't work for me, I do believe this will appeal to some people. Even in the best cases, I'm not a fan of literary horror, which is what this reminds me of.

This is most unfortunate. I was intrigued by the bizarre nature of the blurb to this book, but all I was greeted with is some of the vilest descriptions of underage sexuality I've read in service of surface level social commentary.

A mosquito boy goes around infecting people with dengue fever.

I'm yet to be disappointed by an Argentinian novel translated from Spanish. I don't know what's going on in that country, but the writing is so good.

I think I would've preferred the story to be more focused with a smaller scope. Less exposition and more character voice. But I respect the book for what it is.

Thank you to Net Galley and Astra Publishing House for the ARC. I have never read anything like this novel before. And it was incredible. While it is a translation, I love the author's writing style so much. Even though there is a lot of gore and grossness in this book, there is also a lot of humor that makes this an enjoyable read. The world building is intense, we're far far into the future in a setting that's completely unfamiliar to me, yet the author is so good at explaining this world in an interesting and humorous way. The future is scary but I would love to visit this world for like less than a day (any longer and I won't survive). I also love all the POVs, from Dengue Boy, to El Dulce, Rene, and AIS. The POVs tied together really well. I also loved the video game that kids in this world are obsessed with. The way games and reality and timelines tied together was really interesting and trippy. This is a weird book where strange things happen, but the author doesn't hand wave the strangeness, all the pieces tie together really well and the themes really hit you towards the end. This book is both weird and a work of genius. Definitely check out the content warnings before reading this.

I found book to be this horrific and disgusting. Who wants to read about young boys masturbating? Creeps. I will not read any more from this author.

I can honestly say I have never read anything like this novel before. Dengue Boy is intense; it does not shy away from grotesque descriptors or uncomfortable scenes. It is an angry book with critiques on capitalism, colonialism, and climate change. The writing style wasn't exactly my thing though, and honestly I'm not sure I exactly understood what was going on for some of it. It felt like there was a lot of telling and not showing? which bogged the experience down for me a bit (though the parts that were descriptive ... were very descriptive).

Wow, wow, wow. Dengue Boy reads like a fever dream that takes you over and whirls you into the year 2272 when the polar icecaps have melted and corruption, capitalism, and global warming produce a giant mosquito, killer viruses that are traded on a stock exchange, and a whole trade of priceless iceberg remnants that are tourist attractions.

This novel is funny, addictive, one of the most imaginative fever dreams I've ever had . . . I mean read. Michel Nieva misses nothing in our spiraling culture. I'd ask what drug he was on to write this, but it would be impossible to write this well under the influence of anything but pure inspiration in the hands of a virtuoso.

okay WHAT ON EARTH did I just read? so.... wow. this book was like.... Metamorphosis mixed with Land of Milk and Honey mixed with a lot of things. An insightful critique of capitalism and humanity's tendency towards self-destruction, through destroying our own planet. Simultaneously, a dizzyingly dark/gross (in a good way) work with a very unique protag. 4 stars. tysm for the arc.

(A CW for depictions of rape, gore, mentions of genocide, and body horror)
Dengue Boy is born in the poisonous and overheated Argentina of the future where speculation on disease has becoming the prime way of doing business.
A garish, disgusting novel that takes on climate change, extractive capitalism, commodities sexuality, and the open wounds colonialism left on Latin America. Nieva blends Snow Crash, Cronenberg, and Latin American sensibilities into an addicting novel.

I adored every wild ridiculous gloriously absurd word of this novel. It made me laugh a lot. Wonderfully imaginative, absolutely unique, every page seemed to introduce a clash of premises that exploded the story into impossible fragments that spun out in unimaginably unlikely directions and made me happy to be alive at the same time as this book came into being, I mean, how unlikely is that, when considered against the vastness of geologic time?