Paradais

By: Fernanda Melchor

Narrated by: Fabiola Stevenson

Author of the acclaimed novel Hurricane Season, Fernanda Melchor leads us into a different kind of hell: paradise.

Inside a luxury housing complex, two misfit teenagers sneak around and get drunk. Franco Andrade, lonely, overweight, and addicted to porn, obsessively fantasizes about seducing his neighbor - an attractive married woman and mother - while Polo dreams about quitting his grueling job as a gardener within the gated community and fleeing his overbearing mother and their narco-controlled village. Each facing the impossibility of getting what he thinks he deserves, Franco and Polo hatch a mindless and macabre scheme.

Written in a chilling torrent of prose by one of our most thrilling new writers, Paradais explores the explosive fragility of Mexican society - with its racist, classist, hyperviolent tendencies - and how the myths, desires, and hardships of teenagers can tear life apart at the seams.

©2021, 2022 Fernanda Melchor, Sophie Hughes (P)2022 New Directions Publishing Corp.

Whoa

This is my first story by Fernanda Melchor and I'm quite impressed. There is no dialogue. Just very aggressive descriptions. A nice break from writers who write in poetic language.

Mature Language- Immature Characters

This was a rough one to get through. Admittedly, I’m not the target audience and only read it for book club. At the same time, I have to ask- who is the target audience? The protagonist is a jerk with problematic thoughts and behaviors. The treatment of women in this book is abhorrent. The way women are talked about, portrayed, and perceived is truly awful. I’m pretty sure my nose was scrunched in disgust during the first two chapters. The third chapter is very well-written, in my opinion. That chapter was the only one during which I felt immersed in the story, rather than in judgment of the author and characters. The reader was lovely, but she sounded too nice for such a gritty story. I found myself wondering how much it bothered her to be saying these things, or if it bothered her at all. I don’t recommend this book for anyone, personally.