Las cosas ue perdimos en el fuego by Mariana Enríquez

Las cosas ue perdimos en el fuego Reviews

• 
  Emily May

  “What do you know about what really goes on around here mamita? You live here but you’re from a different world” 3 12 stars ^This is exactly how this whole book feels I recognise the world in it; I suppose in many ways it's the one I live in except it also isn't It’s the dark spaces and the secrets hidden just under the surface of the world we knowI can definitely feel the Shirley Jackson vibe Enríuez has written a collection of Argentinian horror stories full of atmosphere suspense and ofttimes the grotesue But like Jackson most of these stories are characterized by their ability to feel normal at first to portray real life and real people but create a sense of the unnatural beneath it all It's an unsettling undercurrent running behind the main events of each storyThe author deftly weaves painfully human characters Whether they be narcos drug users or transvestites they all come to life on the page and in the intense scary manic and yet somewhat familiar world of the novelSome of the stories are stranger than others and those were perhaps my least favourite The ones where the author ranked up the ick factor were almost too much for me Gory descriptions of the insides of small animals is not my cup of tea But these were in the minority Others captured small circles and underbellies of our own world in an extremely intense and emotive wayFor example The Intoxicated Years About those friendships so close personal and intense that it's hard to separate yourself from the other person This story chronicles a downward spiral into drug abuse over several years in the late 80searly 90s Intoxicating feels a deeply appropriate word about than just drug abuse eually about the intoxicating nature of the relationships within and the heady writing itselfOthers border on traditional horror about haunted houses and things that go bump in the night Yet of course Enríuez puts her own spin on it and nothing is ever uite so simple as a haunted house Still passages like this will give traditional horror lovers some chills “The house tells us the stories You don’t hear it?” “Poor thing” said Pablo “She doesn’t hear the house’s voice” “It doesn’t matter” said Adela “We’ll tell you” And they told me About the old woman whose eyes had no pupils but who wasn’t blindAbout the old man who burned medical books out by the empty chicken coop in the backyard About the backyard just as dry and dead as the front full of little holes like the dens of rats About a faucet that never stopped dripping because the thing that lived in the house needed water Frightening dramatic and impossible to look away fromBlog | Facebook | Twitter | Instagram | Youtube | Store
• 
  Roxane

  uite a compelling collection of short stories uiet gothic horrors really that exemplify the complexities the small and great tragedies of the human condition uite a sharp edge in these stories and she has a lot to say about women girls trying to be in the world the confines of bad marriages the ravages of poverty and addiction Many of these stories exemplify what good horror stories are supposed to do
• 
  PorshaJo

  Yikes What a creepy gruesome macabre read This one is a series of 12 short stories The stories are told from unnamed cities in Argentina The stories really are all over the place From murder torture ghost stories urban legend haunted houses superstitions love and heartbreak and Some stories are stronger than others as is usually the case with short stories Not every story is perfectly wrapped up either I didn't find that disappointing of a wanting I wanted to hear as the story was so good I listened to this one via audio and the narrator was uite good But considering the subject matter in the stories it was probably not the best book to listen to via a speaker My husband never uestioned what I was listening to but I'm sure he's 'wondering what the heck'If you love good creeepy stories then this one is for you If you are a horror fan you might like this one A perfect read for a scary Halloween night for sure But probably not for everyone If you are easily weirded out by the macabre stories of child torture murder and mayhem this is not the read for you But if you can handle it it's worth the read
• 
  Fran

  Ghosts supernatural events disappearances and revenge Things We Lost in the Fire has it all Focusing on myths and legends and set in the slums of Argentina twelve eerie short stories aim to pull the reader into darkness and disuietude Fans of horror will not be disappointed Adela's House was my favorite story Adela a spoiled one armed girl with a stump at her shoulder lives in an enormous chalet Brother and sister Pablo and Clara befriend her although neighborhood kids laugh at her Pablo encourages Adela to explore an abandoned house nearby despite the fact that the windows are bricked up and the house appears to vibrate The Inn is a story of revenge Our protagonist plans to scare the Inn owner after her father a tour guide and star employee is fired from his job Enlisting a friend's help a wicked plan is hatched The Dirty Kid explores desperation and homelessness in poverty stricken Buenos Aires It seemed natural that people were starving The haves did not care about the have nots Treating a hungry five year old to ice cream leads to an obsession Things We Lost in the Fire by Mariana Enriuez is a creepy crawly read In every story the characters lives helplessly spiral to a dark epicenter and they emerge changed and haunted An excellent collection of short stories Thank you to Penguin's First to Read program for the opportunity to read and review Things Lost in the Fire
• 
  Esil

  Things We Lost in the Fire is an awfully dark collection of short stories These macabre stories are all set in contemporary Argentina Many stories have a touch of unreality suggestions of ghosts and otherworldly beings But the point of these suggested apparitions is to emphasize the horror of some aspects of contemporary Argentinian life extreme poverty violence drug addiction and crime Often the central characters are middle class young men and women exposed to Argentina's dark underbelly and the hovering uestion is whether what they have seen is real or an apparition Despite this common device and touch of unreality the stories are very diverse in their characters and setting I particularly liked a few of the longer ones The Dirty Kid about the narrator's obsession with a street kid who disappears in her neighbourhood Spiderweb about a women who goes on a trip with her unpleasant husband to visit a cousin The Neighbor's Courtyard about a disgraced social worker keeping an eye on a potential child in distress in a neighbour's yard Things We Lost in the Fire about a burn victim who holds audience in the subwayI recommend this to anyone who likes short stories and looks to literature to gain insight into different parts of the world Don't be deterred by the surrealism it adds to the richness of these stories without overwhelming the narrativeThank you to Netgalley and the publisher for an opportunity to read an advance copy
• 
  Edward Lorn

  There's not a single bad story in this collection Some stories outshine others but they are all engaging and unsettling Stories like The Neighbor's Courtyard and End of Term are insidious They worm their way into you and leave a significant impression And Adela's House was utterly bone chillingOne of the biggest standouts in this collection is Under the Black Water There is zero on screen horror All the horror is implied Fucking loved that It's not something you see done well these days mostly because a vast majority of readers don't have time for that shit These readers want to see the horror to face it and dissect it and judge it I will never understand this type of reader All my life I have loved authors who did not hold my hand One of the best parts about novels and short stories what makes them for me stand above movies and comics and any other visual media is the ability to form my own versions of things in my head You are not limited to someone else's vision I am not a reader who wants everything spelled out for them I'm not here to let you have all the fun fucker I wanna play tooAnd that is where Mariana Enríuez shines The best of these stories have no conclusion You are left in the dark bumping into slimy sticky uncomfortable things You have to find your own way out and into the light That for me is the best kind of horror That's why this book gets all the stars My only complaint is completely subjective I didn't understand two of the stories for whatever reason I was still unsettled I still enjoyed myself I simply missed the author's intention Luckily one of the stories is explained in the Translator's Notes at the end of the book Usually I'd say a good story must stand on its own but the explanation didn't treat me like a child and I appreciated that Because of that I'm not docking any starsIn summation If you're like me and you like feeling unsettled after reading a horror story and can deal with the author not holding your hand this collection checks all the boxes One of the best horror collections I've read Many thanks to Crown Publishing and Hogarth for the review copy which I received in return for the review you just readFinal Judgment Drips dreadPS Let's play a drinking game Go through all the reviews of this book and every time you see a reviewer use the word macabre take a shot annnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnd you're drunk xD
• 
  Taryn

  35 Stars Twelve macabre short stories set in Argentina It's very dark and disturbingWe all walk over bones in this city it’s just a uestion of making holes deep enough to reach the buried dead No Flesh Over Our BonesTens of thousands of people were disappeared or killed from 1976 to 1983 when Argentina's military junta committed “crimes against humanity within the framework of a genocide” While not overtly mentioned the horrific tales in Things We Lost in the Fire are intertwined with Argentina's past Past atrocities refuse to stay buried always lurking in the back of the collective mind These stories take place on top of mass graves These stories feature police brutality depression drug addicts poverty self harm and children deformed by pollution The shrines to saints on every corner make all of these horrors feel even haunting Many of the characters are resigned to the awful events they witness Some of them end up not helping those in need either because of lack of resources or helping could lead to worse conseuences for themselves In Green Red Orange a man withdraws from the world and gets immersed in the deep web where the worst of humanity is viewed as entertainment Most of the characters are stuck in unhappy relationships They resent their partners but can't bring themselves to leave Except for the first story my favorites were in the second halfThe Dirty Kid A middle class woman thinks the homeless boy who lives across from her home is the victim of a savage murder She can't rest until she finds out if it's true She regrets doing so little for the boy despite witnessing the terrible conditions he lived in every dayAn Invocation of Big Eared Runt read it at link My favorite A man who leads murder tours is fascinated by a long dead child murderer At home he resents how his wife transformed into a different person after the birth of their child The uiet ending left me feeling uneasy about this family's future The city didn’t have any great murderers if you didn’t count the dictators—not included in the tour for reasons of political correctness No Flesh Over Our Bones A woman becomes obsessed with an abandoned human skullUnder the Black Water A district attorney investigates the case of two teenagers murdered by police officers Months later a witness tells her one of the victims has resurfaced There's no way he survived so she goes to investigate When she arrives and sees all the shrines have disappeared you know it's about to get terrifying The nearby river's pollution is bad but it might be covering for something even worseThings We Lost in the Fire After a rash of domestic violence women begin setting themselves on fire The old women's conversation at the end chilled me to the bone “Burnings are the work of men They have always burned us Now we are burning ourselves But we’re not going to die; we’re going to flaunt our scars” Honorable MentionThe Neighbor's Courtyard A depressed social worker sees a chance at redemption when she spots a chained boy in her neighbor's courtyard I loved how the details of this story unraveled It went from realistic to crazy at the very end so I'm not sure what to think of this oneI loved the mix of history and horror My favorite stories were those where the line between real life and the bizarre was the most blurred Enríuez was masterful at creating a creepy atmosphere and building tension I could feel the knot in my stomach getting tighter as each story progressed My biggest complaint is that many of the stories felt incomplete The tension would reach a fever pitch and then it would just end There were moments in each story that I loved but many times I was left with a ton of uestions and no theories to ponder If you enjoy supernatural tales and the dark and twisty characters of Gillian Flynn or Roxane Gay Difficult Women you might enjoy this short story collection I recommend reading it in the darkAnother book that deals with Argentina during the late 70sThe Case of Lisandra P It has mixed reviews as a suspense novel but some of the most powerful sections are when people talk about their experiences during that time periodI received this book for free from Netgalley Crown PublishingHogarth in exchange for an honest review This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review It's available now
• 
  Zoeytron

  Copy furnished by Net Galley for the price of a reviewA macabre anthology of tales of madness and of going mad Stinking goats with red eyes an abandoned house with a voice that tells its own stories a box of dead birds hidden under a bed Tales of self mutilation incessant nightmares of being chased by amputated legs and arms a woman's obsession with a toothless human skull Set in present day Argentina using a backdrop of pervasive heat and insanity these stories are for well seasoned readers of horror Deliciously dark and disturbing My favorites were No Flesh Over Our Bones and Adela's House
• 
  Melki

  Wow what a stunning collection of storiesThough there are ghosts monsters and demons I hesitate to attach the horror label as these are not traditional horror stories Enriuez's tales do not gush blood but there is a background noise of uiet dripping a slow oozing away of precious bodily fluids Her work is subtly unnerving delicately disturbing; you are coaxed gently into each story not knowing what to expect Afterwards you don't so much leave the tale as back away slowly shaking your head unable to forget what you've seenI won an advance reading copy of this book through Goodread's First Reads Giveaways It's due to be released on February 21 2017 Write that on your calendar Preorder the book And then prepare yourself
• 
  Blair

  Pandemic rereads #6It's hard to believe it's been three years since I first read Things We Lost in the Fire I don't have much to add to my original review below but this reread has made me bump it up to the full five stars so I thought I ought to say a bit about why Most of all it's that this book has stayed with me I think about it all the time I recommend it often I remember the way certain stories made me feel and I remember specific details from others All surefire signs of a favouriteMy few original criticisms still stand some stories end prematurely andor glibly and others the title story in particular are centred on rather unwieldy concepts But the collection as a whole rises above these flaws 'Adela's House' deserves to be regarded as one of the great modern horror stories 'The Neighbour's Courtyard' 'The Dirty Kid' 'Under the Black Water' and 'Spiderweb' are excellent A few I didn't love initially including 'End of Term' and 'An Invocation of the Big Eared Runt' gained power on a second reading If you enjoy short stories and particularly if you like them on the dark side you must read EnríuezTinyLetter Original review September 2017'Argentine gothic' is a fitting label for Things We Lost in the Fire Ghosts haunted houses and unexplained events appear throughout these stories but they aren't necessarily horror as much as they are simply dark Often suffused with the threat of real violence as well as supernatural terror they touch on the hidden tensions and agonies of a country with a turbulent past roiling just beneath the visible surface In this book Argentina itself is haunted a country haunted by historyIn 'The Inn' a character is sacked because he has been telling tourists the true history of the town's inn something its owner is keen to conceal In 'Spiderweb' a burning house is seen from a plane and minutes later there is only scorched earth; a woman runs out in front of a car and disappears and the driver later learns a nearby bridge is rumoured to contain the skeletons of those murdered and hidden by the military In 'Under the Black Water' the Riachuelo river is made monstrous by years of pollution tradesmen dumping waste and police dumping bodies Several of the stories contain sudden disappearances that remain unresolved – uncanny echoes of the phenomenon of 'the disappeared' caused by the Dirty WarMy only complaint about Things We Lost in the Fire is that it suffers repeatedly from Premature Ending Syndrome Time and time again the stories cut off in what seems to be the middle of the most intriguing part and end without explaining what has happened In the best cases as with 'Adela's House' this lack of explanation is itself a resolution the absence of an answer being the most terrifying possible conclusion In the worst cases it feels like the stories have been erroneously published with bits missing However the uality of description and storytelling are so high that 'the worst' are still than worth your timeBeautifully translated with a crisp style that makes it difficult to believe these stories weren't originally written in English Things We Lost in the Fire is a powerful memorable collection Every story seems to have multiple layers making them perfect for critical analysis and discussion My favourites were 'Adela's House' 'Dirty Kid' and 'The Neighbour's Courtyard'Dirty KidA young woman who we infer is middle class lives in her family's old home in what has become an unpleasant and dangerous neighbourhood She often sees a woman who lives on the street with her young son One day the boy knocks on her door alone and the narrator – reluctant to let him into her house – takes him to get ice cream She later manages to reunite him with his mother who reacts with rabid fury The next day a little boy is found raped murdered and dismembered The sheer horrifying violence of his death is a shock and it heightens the narrator's sense of terrible guilt her conviction irrational in others' eyes that the murdered boy is the 'dirty kid' as well as making a mockery of her romantic image of the neighbourhood A startling opener to the collectionThe InnFlorencia a strait laced teen reunites with her friend Rocío; they plot to humiliate Elena owner of the local inn who has fired Rocío's father from his job as a tour guide Part of the reason is that he's been telling tourists about the inn's dubious history as a police training academy during the dictatorship When the girls sneak into the inn at night they get than they bargained for As well as the menacing spectre of history the terrifying experience they and only they endure works as a metaphor for Florencia's own fear of her burgeoning attraction to RocíoThe Intoxicated YearsScenes from the lives of three girls children? teenagers? their ages aren't clear between the late 1980s and early 1990s The most interesting stuff seems to be happening in the background just out of reach Maybe that's the point but I found this one a bit of a dudAdela's HouseLittle Carla and her 11 year old brother Pablo befriend Adela a girl in their neighbourhood who was born with one arm and is an object of disgust and mockery for other kids at school After getting obsessed with gory movies Pablo and Adela decide to explore a nearby abandoned house bringing Carla along with them This is a superb tale of weirdness dread and nameless horror Like Tomás Eloy Martínez in his novel Purgatory Enríuez uses magical realism to elucidate the experience of losing someone without explanation reason or conclusionAn Invocation of the Big Eared RuntThe protagonist works as a tour guide in Buenos Aires telling tourists about the city's most famous serial killers but not its dictators though they are the most prolific murderers of all Corporeal visions of a child killer become caught up with his resentment of his wife and newborn sonSpiderwebAn unhappily married woman visits family in the 'humid north' Over the course of the trip she becomes and convinced that she must leave her husband Throughout the story characters tell tales of strange things that have happened to them disappearing figures disappearing houses dreams and visions of disaster In the end one of these strange incidents seems to befall the abhorred husband Or is there a ordinary if just as horrifying explanation? What is the 'misunderstanding' spoken of at the end?End of TermWhen Marcela a previously unremarkable girl starts to harm herself in gruesome and very public ways her entire class is transfixed The narrator is particularly fascinated – especially when Marcela tells her she sees and hears a man telling her to do these things This feels like it could be a spooky story for children It's macabre and has an effective jump scare moment but is a little thinNo Flesh Over Our BonesThis story somehow feels distinct from the others; it's less gritty and has a stronger sense of detachment from reality while still retaining the darkness that pervades the whole collection To the disgust of her boyfriend and mother the narrator brings home a toothless skull she finds in a pile of rubbish naming it 'Vera' and becomes obsessed with it Perhaps the most important line comes close to the end 'We all walk over bones in this city it's just a uestion of making holes deep enough to reach the buried dead'The Neighbour's CourtyardPaula and Miguel move into a new house one the owner is suspiciously anxious to let uickly Paula is battling depression exacerbated by Miguel's prejudice against the idea of medication andor psychiatric treatment and is haunted by memories of her former job as a social worker from which she was fired after a lapse of judgement So there are multiple horrors here mental illness; the anguish of not being seen or understood by someone who's supposed to love you; guilt; and the expected macabre twist – Paula sees a naked filthy child chained up in the neighbour's courtyard but when she tries to show Miguel there's nothing to seeSimilar to 'The Inn' where the source of dread is emblematic of history but also stands for Florencia's fear of her sexuality here the figure of the boy seems like a physical manifestation of Paula's depression Yet the ending subverts this It's the opposite of 'Adela's House' – here the conclusive answer is the ultimate terrorUnder the Black WaterMarina is a district attorney investigating what she suspects is a police cover up She's visited by a girl from the Villa Moreno slum who tells her Emanuel presumed drowned actually crawled out of the heavily polluted Riachuelo river alive but 'changed' Chasing the truth behind this strange story Marina goes to Villa Moreno herself finding it oddly silent and watchful I'd have liked this to be longer but it has a fantastic atmosphere and is so vivid Of all the stories this would make the best filmGreen Red OrangeOne of the weaker stories this is the tale of a young man who locks himself in his room and refuses to come out It's told from the perspective of a woman he talks to online – the only way he communicates with the outside world This itself is not particularly interesting though there are some standout passages particularly the episode of the teacher who invents a daughterThings We Lost in the FireThis could have come straight out of Camilla Grudova's The Doll's Alphabet and it reminded me of her story 'Unstitching' in which women begin to shed their skins and the act performed en masse comes to signify a sort of feminist revolution Here the women of an unidentified city are seized by a craze for self immolation aiming to make themselves grotesue and undesirable – a subversion of an earlier spate of attacks on women by abusive partners The imagery is strong but I found the message a bit heavy handed especially when compared with the subtle symbolism of many of the preceding stories