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A review by versmonesprit
The Dangers of Smoking in Bed by Mariana Enríquez
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? N/A
- Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A
2.0
Each of these stories felt like AHS to me, and I don’t mean that as a compliment.
You know how the AHS teasers are mesmerising and terrifying and so promising, and then the actual filmed product is a massive step down from the teasers, and not only that but they always end sloppily hastily? That’s exactly what The Dangers of Smoking in Bed is. The hype, the praiseful reviews are the cinematically masterful teasers, they lure you in on a false promise, so already the existing, actual material is a disappointment. But you could potentially get over that, if only the stories still landed within themselves, still succeeded in being themselves even though they’re not what the reviews make them out to be. Unfortunately they don’t land, because they suffer from the same sloppy endings that never live up to the tension built over the length of the story, concluding them so abruptly it feels like someone else completed them. You’re left feeling profoundly deceived, betrayed, disappointed, and honestly, robbed.
Enriquez is scared of going the full length for some reason, somehow incapable of realising 10-something pages are not enough to tell and conclude a horror story effectively. The haste she seems to have been in is inexplicable to me, especially because in this pointless haste she glosses over what could have easily been horrifying had the narration bothered to dwell on them, from malicious entities whose true forms we’re told but never shown are terrifying to extreme self-mutilation. Only people completely unfamiliar with gore would imagine there’s enough substance in these stories to be horrifying or even mysterious enough to create unease.
It is, as such, impossible to understand how come anyone has called this collection ‘Gothic’. The prose offers none of the bit flowery style associated with the genre: it’s written like any other generic contemporary fiction — all plot, and no unique style or approach either. There aren’t any romantic qualities to the characters, their voices completely indistinguishable from one another. The stories are heavily inspired by existing horror tales, only worse-executed. They aren’t even atmospheric! Almost none of the stories are tied to their settings: you could change the place names, carry these stories to anywhere else in the world, and they’d work exactly the same — which is another layer of disappointment, because the reviews insistently promise a sociopolitical reading of Argentina. (You can’t even call these folk horror, because the only authentically South American element is the worship of San La Muerte, but even then there is very little substance to support a folk horror narrative.)
On this note, I was also fooled by the reviews promising a feminist stance. None of these stories have a feminist tone at all, and only one mentions the evils men do to women and teenage girls . . . and by mention I mean literally in just one sentence.
It really was a shame. I also bought Things We Lost in the Fire, for which I have started the return process because I don’t think Enriquez has anything of merit to offer, and the barely-there entertainment factor certainly isn’t enough to justify the price for me.
You know how the AHS teasers are mesmerising and terrifying and so promising, and then the actual filmed product is a massive step down from the teasers, and not only that but they always end sloppily hastily? That’s exactly what The Dangers of Smoking in Bed is. The hype, the praiseful reviews are the cinematically masterful teasers, they lure you in on a false promise, so already the existing, actual material is a disappointment. But you could potentially get over that, if only the stories still landed within themselves, still succeeded in being themselves even though they’re not what the reviews make them out to be. Unfortunately they don’t land, because they suffer from the same sloppy endings that never live up to the tension built over the length of the story, concluding them so abruptly it feels like someone else completed them. You’re left feeling profoundly deceived, betrayed, disappointed, and honestly, robbed.
Enriquez is scared of going the full length for some reason, somehow incapable of realising 10-something pages are not enough to tell and conclude a horror story effectively. The haste she seems to have been in is inexplicable to me, especially because in this pointless haste she glosses over what could have easily been horrifying had the narration bothered to dwell on them, from malicious entities whose true forms we’re told but never shown are terrifying to extreme self-mutilation. Only people completely unfamiliar with gore would imagine there’s enough substance in these stories to be horrifying or even mysterious enough to create unease.
It is, as such, impossible to understand how come anyone has called this collection ‘Gothic’. The prose offers none of the bit flowery style associated with the genre: it’s written like any other generic contemporary fiction — all plot, and no unique style or approach either. There aren’t any romantic qualities to the characters, their voices completely indistinguishable from one another. The stories are heavily inspired by existing horror tales, only worse-executed. They aren’t even atmospheric! Almost none of the stories are tied to their settings: you could change the place names, carry these stories to anywhere else in the world, and they’d work exactly the same — which is another layer of disappointment, because the reviews insistently promise a sociopolitical reading of Argentina. (You can’t even call these folk horror, because the only authentically South American element is the worship of San La Muerte, but even then there is very little substance to support a folk horror narrative.)
On this note, I was also fooled by the reviews promising a feminist stance. None of these stories have a feminist tone at all, and only one mentions the evils men do to women and teenage girls . . . and by mention I mean literally in just one sentence.
It really was a shame. I also bought Things We Lost in the Fire, for which I have started the return process because I don’t think Enriquez has anything of merit to offer, and the barely-there entertainment factor certainly isn’t enough to justify the price for me.