THIS BOOK IS WILD. I’ll say it’s one of the MOST WHAT THE HELL BOOK I’VE READ IN A LONG TIME.

This is a difficult one to categorize, it’s dystopian, sci-fi, body horror, i-don’t-know-what-else novel set in a future ravaged by climate change and ultra-capitalism. It’s described as "gaucho-punk"; and I haven't the slightest idea what that is.

The year is 2197. The timelines does at some point seem to move on but I got lost. The story revolves around a human-mosquito hybrid, Dengue Boy, who lives in a small Argentinian town. He was born with insect-like features, detested & ostracized by his community. His community cannot even bear to look at him, and those who do, do it for amusement & bully. Even his mother detests him, and secretly thinks he will inevitably become a blood sucking machine unable to control his impulses. Everyday when he goes to school, she gives him a tupperware of blood – in case, she says, he suddenly finds strange urges, she tells him to suck into the tupperware. He flies to school and throws the Tupperware away everyday.

One day, Dengue Boy is sent to a summer camp, where he is bullied in a violent confrontation. Dengue Boy ‘transforms’ into Dengue Girl, a blood-sucking female mosquito, and embarks on his (her?) own vigilante justice and rampage against her tormentors and the wealthy elite who exploit the poor.

I felt for Dengue Boy from the outset. He is a representation of a class of people in society who are rejected for no reason at all other than for things he was born with, for which he ultimately cannot control. He did actually become what his mother feared him to be. I found myself rooting for Dengue Boy, even if I didn’t know WHAT THE HELL WAS GOING ON in some parts of the story. (IT’S A FRENZY). The only thing I would have liked to know more was what Dengue Boy was like outside of his bizarre form. What is his core as a being? What are his values & beliefs? His character lacked alil depth as the main depiction.

It’s a different world order here. Corporations capitalize on and gain financially from viruses and outbreaks. The new Wall Street predicts not shares, but which virus will become an outbreak. There is a lot of grotesque, vivid depictions underlining deeper issues of societal gross inequalities, ultra-capitalism, and climate change. It mirrors a world where corporations profit from diseases and environmental disasters. This book was UNPREDICTABLE, and has many out-of-the-world elements. It made me think alot about society - what they do to those of us who are dangerous, but are themselves a plague to humanity. There is brilliance is some of its depictions, I like how it just whacks you in the face with truths – there’s no soft entrance for this one.

WILD. Just, WILD. Is this what they mean by genre-defying? This was a really different read for me. Unlike anything I’ve read. If you like not knowing what the heck to expect and don’t mind being taken on a ride, this might be for you.

Giving this 4/5!

This was weird and maybe a little too freaky for me. It reminded me of Kafka, grotesque and disturbing. I'm not sure if it got the metaphors across clearly but I'm sure there is an audience out there for it.

Michel Nieva’s Dengue Boy is a feverish, grotesque, and exhilarating vision of a dystopian future, blending body horror, sci-fi, and biting social satire into a uniquely unsettling narrative. Set in a climate-ravaged 2197 Argentina, where ultra-capitalist megacorporations control every aspect of life—including viral outbreaks traded on the stock exchange—this gaucho-punk novel is as chaotic as it is brilliant.

At the center of the novel is Dengue Boy, a part-human, part-mosquito mutant, born into a world where the last of the Antarctic icecaps have melted, transforming the Pampas into a tropical, disease-ridden wasteland. Telepathic pebbles, ultra-wealthy elites living aboard ships, and children immersed in violent historical reenactment video games add to the surreal backdrop. Bullied and outcast, Dengue Boy embarks on a bloodthirsty rampage that evolves into a spiritual journey, forcing readers to question identity, power, and the boundaries between human and non-human life.

Nieva’s prose is dizzying—simultaneously poetic, vulgar, and deeply philosophical. The novel doesn’t just critique capitalism, climate collapse, and biotechnological exploitation; it dissects them with an anarchic glee, forcing readers into a world where commodification has reached its grotesque extreme. The book’s relentless pace and body horror elements won’t be for everyone—it’s disturbing, visceral, and at times overwhelming—but for those willing to embrace its chaotic energy, Dengue Boy offers an unforgettable experience.

The translation by Rahul Bery is seamless, preserving the novel’s rhythm and linguistic playfulness. At times, the narrative feels almost unhinged, but that only adds to the immersive, fever-dream quality of the story. It’s dark, absurdly funny, and shockingly inventive—a book that refuses to hold the reader’s hand but rewards those who meet it on its own terms.

For fans of Cronenberg, Kafka, and speculative fiction that pushes boundaries, Dengue Boy is a must-read. It’s a grotesque, urgent, and wildly original take on the future—one that feels disturbingly close to reality.

This sent my mind spinning in the best way! A bizarre, inventive, and exhilarating read with a totally bonkers premise that reflects so much of our contemporary anxieties!

Michel Nieva’s Dengue Boy started out as a short story first published by Granta Mag in 2021, translated by Natasha Wimmer. It was developed into a novel that was first published in 2023, later translated from the Spanish to English by Rahul Bery (pub. 2025).

Its 2197 in the Pampas region of Argentina, and the world is looking very different. Ruled by conglomerates, society is divided into the haves and have nots, youth escaping into virtual worlds re-enacting imagined pasts. The last polar ice caps have melted, submerging land masses and altering Earth’s geography as we know it. Hot and humid, these now tropical environs are the perfect breeding ground for all manner of vectors and viruses. It’s here that Dengue Boy is born, a part-human, part-mosquito mutant hybrid of unclear origins. Bullied by his peers, he (she!) comes to an awakening at school camp one day, this moment a catalyst for a blood-thirsty rampage slash spiritual odyssey of sorts.

This was fantastic! Dubbed gaúcho-punk for its unique blend of Gaúcho and cyberpunk literature, it fuses contemporary ills with Argentinian history through a SF lens. And it works! The effect is a literary aesthetic that I won’t soon forget, zinging with enduring existential truths of our humanity, our collective existence a mere blip in the larger cycles of time.

Not quite looking in a mirror, but through a looking glass perhaps, at a world so foreign yet easily recognisable in our own, one where ultra-capitalistic societies run by megacorporations have ravaged our planet and commodified just about everything, the gap between the wealthy and the poor like a chasm. And still not content, capitalising on deadly viruses via the ‘virofinance’ stock exchange, eyes set on terraforming space. It touches on so many of our worldly concerns, such as race, class, gender, disability, identity, indigeneity, colonisation, capitalism and climate change, reproductive justice, virtual reality disseminating ideologies, violence, transhumanism, etc; the weight of their reckoning more than our words can say.

As if all of that wasn’t exciting enough, the best part is the writing. The language sings! All nimble wordplay and laser-like observations, the heart of a poet is surely at work here. There’s such rhythm and musicality to the prose, words steadily building to an incantatory crescendo that spools the largesse of individual selves into a void of ultimate possibility. Everything is fluid until the very notion of boundaries is transcended, surrendering to the natural anarchy in our interconnectedness, multiple revolutions of humanity’s cosmic struggle condensed to a brief, bright light in the history of our planet, the novel’s narrative metaphysically winding across the depths of space-time, through life and death, towards a geological origin, where everything began and can be again.
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Truly commend the work of translator Rahul Bery here. No mean feat translating a work of such scope and agility, I imagine, but it reads flawlessly! Stylish and emotionally resonant, Dengue Boy captures the darkness and the light in our existence. It’s hilarious, vulgar at times, but poignant and hopeful too. I’d definitely be keen to read more by Michel Nieva, and will be buzzing about this novel for some time! 👀🦟 Thank you so much @astrahousebooks for this copy! 🙏🏼❤️‍🔥

This is unlike anything I've read. It was WILD and funny and weird and I hope it is nominated for the International Booker because it deserves it.

Dengue Boy is a fever dream that follows a mosquito-human hybrid boy (…or are they?) as they navigate a world steeped in oppressive heat, monetized diseases, otherness, and the construct of time. Your head will spin as you trip through the visceral world of Dengue Boy. I loved this weird, unsettling, and sometimes humorous story - 4.5 ⭐️!

Thank you to #NetGalley and Astra Publishing House for my ARC in exchange for my honest review.

All hail the Mighty Anarch! I would have called this hilarious sci-fi if I hadn't read it in 2025, virofinance, interplanetary extractivism, and biocapitalist terraforming are just around the corner. As it is, it's distilled Anthropocene realism. Plenty to be said, especially in relation to life and nonlife and how between the two is exploited. Is the Mighty Anarch After Life? How would Geontologies look like after the Mighty Anarch?

It's hard for me to find the words to describe this book, because Dengue Boy is complex in the most phenomenal way. Both absurd and sharply critical, humorous and heartbreaking, this novel has something for all fiction lovers. With rich language, gory details, and intelligent analysis, I will be recommending Dengue Boy to my fellow booksellers and customers.

Thank you Astra publishing for an Advanced reader copy of this book.

Honestly, what can I say. This book was a trip. It was weird and wonderful at the same time. I enjoyed it and also was replused at the same time. The author did an incredible job with the imagery. Make sure you have a strong stomach if you are going to read this.

I was so excited for this inventive and dystopian book, but I found it unfortunately very difficult to get through. Just not for me I'm afraid.

A novel with very fun sci-fi/cli-fi ideas, but with an awful and somehow boring execution. The world-building was totally bogged down with trying to cram too much and not fleshing out the characters out enough for readers to feel anything.

I'm not sure why there were so many parenthetical asides that would remind the reader about details that had just occurred (for instance, when Dengue Boy becomes Dengue Girl, the narrator reminds us of the transition every time the character gets mentioned).

Thank you NetGalley & Astra Publishing House for the ARC!

Dengue Boy was a wild ride. With the fast pace, it was a pretty quick read, but by no means easy. I love that its so clearly anticapitalist and grounded in the reality of a future where our climate has descended even further, but also so absurd at some moments that its quite hilarious. I'd love to read more by this author!

Rating: 5/5 stars

I’m grateful to NetGalley and Astra House for the ARC of this wild, unforgettable book.

Dengue Boy is a mind-blowing, unapologetically grotesque, and shockingly imaginative ride. Michel Nieva’s descriptions are visceral, his worldbuilding intricate, and his vision of a warped, late-stage information-age future is disturbingly believable. The novel’s explicitness, heavy themes, and relentless gore make it not for the faint of heart, yet its pacing and tone somehow maintain an almost exhilarating lightness.

The narrative structure can feel chaotic at times, but that only adds to the book’s frenetic energy. The pragmatic yet deeply detailed writing style ensures that every moment—no matter how surreal—is vividly etched into the reader’s mind. Nieva’s ability to blend sci-fi, horror, and biting social commentary is nothing short of incredible.

This book won’t be for everyone, but for those willing to dive into its grotesque brilliance, Dengue Boy offers a singularly unique and thought-provoking experience. Highly recommend.

At no point during this book did I have any idea where the next page, paragraph, or sentence would lead. A completely absurd and endlessly entertaining satire on capitalism and greed in an extreme climate crisis dystopia. I hope we get more of Nivea’s work translated to English.

DENGUE BOY
@micheltinieblas
Thank you @astrahousebooks for this gifted copy.
Out now!

2025 came in hot with a bunch of bull. What we need: a hero. A hero fitting for this time in history. A hero willing to take it all back and do what needs doing.

Who is that hero?

Dengue Boy.

A raucous rampaging and truly hilarious novel full of futuristic violence, magic(?), video games, blood and rage, Dengue Boy is set 200 years from now after the glaciers have melted and the world is overrun by evil capitalist overlords leeching off society via virofinance manipulations, that is, currency founded on a market based on the likelihood of a new viral outbreak.

Dengue Boy, a human-mosquito hybrid, steps in. After several murders, a few transformations, a low point and some ancient magical knowledge, can they bring peace back to the planet?

This unstoppable novel does it all. It’s fun, funny, weird, gross, etc, but what a RELIEF it is to read dystopian climate sci fi without cliché!!! I didn’t buy into it 100% immediately, but this is why bookstagram is so great—I was able to discuss the novel with a friend, read some resources about it, and I came to understand just how much nuance and brilliance is pouring out of this batty little book.

Don’t come here if you’re squeamish or have certain expectations of how a novel should read in English, and don’t expect any handholding—you’re expected to bring your own vibrant imagination to meet this novel where it is.

Otherwise, just come because it’s a great gory book that will have your brain jumping from profound contemplations of the universe to .. well whatever the opposite of that is (omg sheepies).. oftentimes within the same paragraph. Dengue Boy is incredible. More gaucho-punk, please. Count me as a Dengue Boy fan.

This was trippy! Unique voice and style. I had to keep stopping to assess what was going on. I’m sure some things went over my head but all in all it was an entertaining read. I think I would have enjoyed it more as an audiobook.
Thanks to the publisher and NetGallery for letting me read!

Delighted to include this title in the February edition of Novel Encounters, my column highlighting the month’s most anticipated fiction for the Books section of Zoomer, Canada’s national lifestyle and culture magazine. (see column and mini-review at link)

I've never left a review for a book I didn't finish before, but I'm doing so for Dengue Boy, of which I've read just over 50%, for two reasons. First, because I got an ARC from NetGalley and I owe them a review. But second, and much more importantly, it's a really excellent book. Beautifully written, wonderfully imaginative, and wryly humorous, I could see this one becoming a big hit. However, I had to stop reading because it was the most grotesque book I have ever read and I simply couldn't stomach it. This is definitely a case of "it's not you, it's me." I think that if a prospective reader enjoys body horror they will love Dengue Boy and if they don't then they might struggle with it. I wish I could have spent more time in the cynical, post-climate apocalypse future that Nieva has constructed. This future world is wildly inventive and, like much good sci-fi, sheds some light on dark truths in the present day. I can't fully recommend this work, but that's on me; if you think this sounds like your kind of book, I would encourage you to pick it up.

Thank you NetGalley and Astra Publishing for an ARC of this new translated novel.

This novel is a psychosexual, bloody, fever dream of a novel that I found interesting more so than entertaining. Surrealist storytelling is not always something I get along with (occasionally feels weird for weird's sake). Still, the ideas about future climate, commodified viruses, and VR brutalism are certainly very interesting and timely. I look forward to reading more from Nieva, even if I didn't get along too well with this novel.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the eARC! This book will be published in the US on February 4th, 2025 by Astra House.

Michel Nieva’s Dengue Boy is an unflinching fever dream of a novel, a body horror-laced dystopia where climate collapse and capitalism have fused into something grotesque, irreversible, and deeply personal. In Nieva’s reimagined Patagonia—now a tropical coastline after the Antarctic ice caps have vanished—Dengue Boy, a mutant mosquito-human hybrid, comes of age in a world that was never meant to hold him. A product of reckless bioengineering, born from corporate greed masquerading as progress, he is rejected by his mother, tormented by his peers, and alienated from his own body. But Dengue Boy is not a story of assimilation—it is a story of monstrous reclamation.

As the novel unfolds, Dengue Boy’s identity fractures and reforms in the shape of vengeance. A brutal moment of self-discovery reveals that she is, in fact, Dengue Girl—only female mosquitoes bite. With that knowledge comes a new hunger, one that cannot be contained. She kills her tormentor, El Dulce, and embarks on a killing spree targeting the ultra-wealthy, those who have thrived while the rest of the world drowns in the consequences of their excess. The novel pivots between Dengue Girl’s transformation into the revolutionary Mother Dengue and the machinations of the elite, who have turned climate catastrophe into an economic engine, profiting off engineered pandemics. It is a world where financial speculation is indistinguishable from ecological devastation, where time itself has lost its borders, collapsing into a prelife of telepathic stones and viral mutations.

Nieva’s prose is as visceral as the world he conjures—dense, all-consuming, and steeped in satire. His sentences sprawl and coil, layering scientific jargon with surrealist horror, corporate doublespeak with fevered hallucination. The effect is hypnotic, a slow descent into a world where the grotesque has become commonplace, where revenge is both deeply personal and disturbingly systemic. Dengue Boy operates on multiple levels at once: a body horror Bildungsroman, a decolonial fable, a critique of techno-capitalism’s unchecked greed. It is a novel unafraid to ask what happens when the world turns so deeply against you that the only reasonable response is to burn it all down.

To read Dengue Boy is to confront the reality that the dystopia Nieva imagines is already seeping into our own. It is a novel that festers, lingers, demands to be reckoned with. And in the end, it leaves one question hanging in the thick, humid air: what happens when the monsters bite back?

📖 Recommended For: Readers who enjoy absurdist and dystopian speculative fiction, critiques of hyper-capitalism, and body horror with a philosophical edge; those interested in the intersections of technology, climate collapse, and resistance.

🔑 Key Themes: Bodily Autonomy and Transformation, Climate Catastrophe and Capitalism, Revenge and Resistance, The Commodification of Life.

Content / Trigger Warnings: Rape (minor), Bullying (minor), Animal Cruelty (minor), Sexual Content (minor), Violence (severe), Gore (severe), Blood (severe).