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Blood Red
The exhilarating English-language debut from celebrated Ecuadorian author Gabriela Ponce Padilla, Blood Red centers the female body in a radical exploration of desire, pleasure, and pain.
In a torrent of stream-of-consciousness fragments, the unnamed narrator of Blood Red recounts the aftermath of her failed marriage in explicit, sensual detail. She falls in and out of love, parties with her friends, skates around the city at night, does a lot of drugs, and gives in to her impulses. Her internal monologue is punctuated by bouts of trypophobia, an obsessive cataloging of holes that empty, fill, widen, and threaten to swallow her entirely. Blood courses through her every encounter from periods, fights, accidents, wounds, sex, streaming to and from her holey fixation. Blood is a vibrant reminder of her physicality, a manifestation of her interiority, a link to memories and sensations—until its abrupt absence changes everything.
Provocative and raw, Blood Red is a fierce portrayal of a woman navigating the gray—or red—zones of her uncertainties and paradoxical urges. A subversive grappling with what it means to wrest power over one’s body, Blood Red revels in the narrator’s autonomy to make choices and face the outcomes, no matter the scale.
In a torrent of stream-of-consciousness fragments, the unnamed narrator of Blood Red recounts the aftermath of her failed marriage in explicit, sensual detail. She falls in and out of love, parties with her friends, skates around the city at night, does a lot of drugs, and gives in to her impulses. Her internal monologue is punctuated by bouts of trypophobia, an obsessive cataloging of holes that empty, fill, widen, and threaten to swallow her entirely. Blood courses through her every encounter from periods, fights, accidents, wounds, sex, streaming to and from her holey fixation. Blood is a vibrant reminder of her physicality, a manifestation of her interiority, a link to memories and sensations—until its abrupt absence changes everything.
Provocative and raw, Blood Red is a fierce portrayal of a woman navigating the gray—or red—zones of her uncertainties and paradoxical urges. A subversive grappling with what it means to wrest power over one’s body, Blood Red revels in the narrator’s autonomy to make choices and face the outcomes, no matter the scale.
192 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2019
32 people are currently reading
3187 people want to read
About the author
Gabriela Ponce Padilla
8 books36 followersEscritora y dramaturga. Publicó su primer libro de cuentos Antropofaguitas en 2015, libro que fue premiado por el Ministerio de Cultura del Ecuador. Algunas de sus obras de teatro se han publicado en antologías dentro y fuera del Ecuador, en 2017 publicó la obra Lugar (Editorial Turbina, 2017). Es parte del colectivo MItómana/Artes Escénicas y docente de teatro en la Universidad San Francisco de Quito.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 110 reviews
May 27, 2023
Blood Red starts at an astonishing clip, its visceral prose galloping through a string of hallucinatory scenes to capture a female experience that realism alone cannot convey. The early scenes reminded me of Ariana Harwicz at her best, the feminism pointed and the boundaries pushed, propriety left behind from the word go. Ponce is part of a new generation of Latin American writers who use horror, including body horror, as a mechanism to explore womanist themes. Blood Red's explicit imagery may be an extreme case, even within that subgenre, although in Ponce's hands it is always with a point to make. Eventually, the story sobers up and morphs into an autofictional-like pregnancy account, diary and all. I'll admit to preferring the early scenes, but of course that torrid pace couldn't continue. In any event, Ponce has other developments in her sights. The story crystalizes with a laudable arc that dramatizes the narrator's journey toward empowerment. This translation of Sanguínea, the original Spanish title, is from the prolific Sarah Booker and published by US-based Restless Books. Gabriela Ponce Padilla was a new writer for me, but I will surely be returning to explore more of her work.
March 14, 2023
Shortlisted for the 2022 Republic of Consciousness Prize, US and Canada
In a moment of silence he runs his rough finger over my hand and tells me some phrase that keeps echoing in me, and that finger, those simple words, come accompanied by a gust of wind that touches me and touches the waves and all the images that suddenly come to me with that caress: M's fingers squeezing my hand and the gardens of Bustarviejo, the contorted face of the woman in the painting and her hair moving in the same wind. That same gust of wind coming through the windows in the cave and touching that man's cheek, his daughter, the turtle in that garden and the board, the same wind that brushes my mother's blonde hair and Maria's knees, the skates lying in my room, it touches the body of the old man flipping through the air, and it touches the river and the poet and my cat, it touches my husband's shirts now hanging in another closet, and it also touches the grass growing on my brother's grave, the tuft of grass that emerges from the crack, it brushes the fist of that baby that's no longer mine…
Blood Red is Sarah Booker's translation of Gabriela Ponce's 2020 novel Sanguínea. It is published by the small independent press Restless Books:
Blood Red is narrated by a woman in her 30s, who is in the process of separating with her husband and still haunted by the death of her brother some time earlier. As the novel opens she is at a warehouse party and ends the nights in the house - a rather surreal cave in her description - of a man with whom she begins an intense, but physical rather than verbal affair.
The story is told in short (2-3 pages) but intense chapters. And the prose, in Sarah Booker's translation, is powerfully visceral. Booker was also responsible for the recent translation of another striking novel from Ecuador, Jawbone from an original by Mónica Ojeda, and also appears twice on the RofC US & Canada list, the second time for her contribution to New and Selected Stories. Mónica Ojeda also provides an apposite blurb to Blood Red: "This book is savage. Ponce’s prose is full of passion, that is, full of desire and pain. That’s why it feels so alive, like a bleeding heart pumping inside your head.”
Our narrator suffers from what she describes as trypophobia, although it comes across as more of an obsession rather than a phobia of holes, and an equal fixation on the colour red (in the novel's closing words she refers to a 'genuine love ... for the certainly of the color red'), particularly the colour of her own blood, menstrual and otherwise, and other bodily fluids, and open about the physicality of her own sexuality. An extract atLiterary Hub is typical.
And beneath all this is the hole that she really fears, the one inside her:
I try to explain what happened but the words fall short or get twisted and come out in surprising ways, and then I tell him about running over that man, the retreat, the last row with my husband, I tell him that the man from the cave is man I barely know, but I feel like I've known him forever. constantly mix up the men. And in that time, the real and the imaginary, the truths and lies sound inadequate and incapable of explaining anything.
I say I'm not going to stay long. I'm looking for a little peace and quiet, just to sleep.
I say I know I need to figure it out quickly.
I say the fear I feel is the fear I've always felt; it's an anguish that pulses under my skin, that's why I chew my fingers, the thick, spongy surface, I chew them because that's how I alleviate the dread.
I say I became aware of that anguish the first time I saw the sea and felt the resonance of that eternal sound in my bowels. Every return to the sea, there's that infinite openness containing all possibility of loss.
I say since then I started crying with the arrival of dusk and crawling under the kitchen table so that no one would ask what was going on.
I say the fear or the anguish became the constant perception of a hole in my stomach made of other holes, trypophobia.
A fascinating pick from the Republic of Consciousness Prize.
In a moment of silence he runs his rough finger over my hand and tells me some phrase that keeps echoing in me, and that finger, those simple words, come accompanied by a gust of wind that touches me and touches the waves and all the images that suddenly come to me with that caress: M's fingers squeezing my hand and the gardens of Bustarviejo, the contorted face of the woman in the painting and her hair moving in the same wind. That same gust of wind coming through the windows in the cave and touching that man's cheek, his daughter, the turtle in that garden and the board, the same wind that brushes my mother's blonde hair and Maria's knees, the skates lying in my room, it touches the body of the old man flipping through the air, and it touches the river and the poet and my cat, it touches my husband's shirts now hanging in another closet, and it also touches the grass growing on my brother's grave, the tuft of grass that emerges from the crack, it brushes the fist of that baby that's no longer mine…
Blood Red is Sarah Booker's translation of Gabriela Ponce's 2020 novel Sanguínea. It is published by the small independent press Restless Books:
Restless Books is an independent, nonprofit publisher devoted to championing essential voices from around the world whose stories speak to us across linguistic and cultural borders. We seek extraordinary international literature for adults and young readers that feeds our restlessness: our hunger for new perspectives, passion for other cultures and languages, and eagerness to explore beyond the confines of the familiar.
Through cultural programming, we aim to celebrate immigrant writing and bring literature to underserved communities. We believe that immigrant stories are a vital component of our cultural consciousness; they help to ensure awareness of our communities, build empathy for our neighbors, and strengthen our democracy.
Blood Red is narrated by a woman in her 30s, who is in the process of separating with her husband and still haunted by the death of her brother some time earlier. As the novel opens she is at a warehouse party and ends the nights in the house - a rather surreal cave in her description - of a man with whom she begins an intense, but physical rather than verbal affair.
The story is told in short (2-3 pages) but intense chapters. And the prose, in Sarah Booker's translation, is powerfully visceral. Booker was also responsible for the recent translation of another striking novel from Ecuador, Jawbone from an original by Mónica Ojeda, and also appears twice on the RofC US & Canada list, the second time for her contribution to New and Selected Stories. Mónica Ojeda also provides an apposite blurb to Blood Red: "This book is savage. Ponce’s prose is full of passion, that is, full of desire and pain. That’s why it feels so alive, like a bleeding heart pumping inside your head.”
Our narrator suffers from what she describes as trypophobia, although it comes across as more of an obsession rather than a phobia of holes, and an equal fixation on the colour red (in the novel's closing words she refers to a 'genuine love ... for the certainly of the color red'), particularly the colour of her own blood, menstrual and otherwise, and other bodily fluids, and open about the physicality of her own sexuality. An extract atLiterary Hub is typical.
And beneath all this is the hole that she really fears, the one inside her:
I try to explain what happened but the words fall short or get twisted and come out in surprising ways, and then I tell him about running over that man, the retreat, the last row with my husband, I tell him that the man from the cave is man I barely know, but I feel like I've known him forever. constantly mix up the men. And in that time, the real and the imaginary, the truths and lies sound inadequate and incapable of explaining anything.
I say I'm not going to stay long. I'm looking for a little peace and quiet, just to sleep.
I say I know I need to figure it out quickly.
I say the fear I feel is the fear I've always felt; it's an anguish that pulses under my skin, that's why I chew my fingers, the thick, spongy surface, I chew them because that's how I alleviate the dread.
I say I became aware of that anguish the first time I saw the sea and felt the resonance of that eternal sound in my bowels. Every return to the sea, there's that infinite openness containing all possibility of loss.
I say since then I started crying with the arrival of dusk and crawling under the kitchen table so that no one would ask what was going on.
I say the fear or the anguish became the constant perception of a hole in my stomach made of other holes, trypophobia.
A fascinating pick from the Republic of Consciousness Prize.
January 8, 2024
3.5 stars. I wasn’t sure how I felt about this book at first so wanted to sit with it a bit before writing a review. It seems to be a book of two halves for a lot of people. It begins really surreal and hallucinatory, with tons of strange and disturbing imagery that borders the line of body horror but doesn’t quite fully feel as though it’s formed into a solid novel yet. As the text goes on and we continue to follow the narrator, the prose really develops into something a lot more coherent and it finally started to grab me. It becomes a lot more of a musing on life, motherhood and decision making and reminded me of books like Still Born, Boulder and The Delivery in its discussions on pregnancy and female autonomy.
Whilst the beginning wasn’t bad at all, I felt as though the style of the writing really shocked me and I definitely preferred the latter half of the book. It started as a 3 star read but then turned into a 4 at the end so that’s why I decided to go with a middle rating. If you like reading books about women discovering her innate sexual power and want to read some very visceral and lyrical prose then I think you would like this a lot.
Whilst the beginning wasn’t bad at all, I felt as though the style of the writing really shocked me and I definitely preferred the latter half of the book. It started as a 3 star read but then turned into a 4 at the end so that’s why I decided to go with a middle rating. If you like reading books about women discovering her innate sexual power and want to read some very visceral and lyrical prose then I think you would like this a lot.
March 11, 2024
Blood red is wtf in the fact that it feels like. a Visceral hallucination but also in the way that makes you have to read a sentence three times to fully comprehend it
These are generally my favorite types of books but I went in thinking it was a visceral, psychological look at a woman obsessed with holes, and was disappointed and confused that it turned into a long, stream of consciousness narrative about a woman navigating an affair with a weird man who lived in a cave while going through a divorce. She’s also sad her brother died.
Oh, and there are a lot of fluids. A lot of fluids and not enough body horror. But that’s a me problem, not a problem with the book.
Even though I don’t really like the plot, the way this describes living with a sense of deep seated fear and anxiety was probably the most real and authentic thing I’ve read. I’ve never felt ‘seen’ by a book, but holy hell.
Take from that what you will.
January 13, 2024
Thank-you to Harriet at Dead Ink Books for the copy.
Blood Red follows a nameless narrator following the failure of her marriage. It's unnerving, graphic - sexually charged and sensually carved. Its stream-of-consciousness narrative and fragmentation adds to its ambiguity as the narrator navigates a hellscape of loss and anguish.
It features a house that is cave-like, where mosses and ferns grow wildly, and cats and bats flutter erratically. The house is where the nameless narrator returns frequently, for ecstasy and alcohol infused rampant sex with a nameless man.
Trypophobia, or fear of repetitive holes, is a big feature throughout (hence the holes in the brilliant cover art). And while experts are still unclear of the phobia itself, in Blood Red it seems to be representative of danger, of an abyss that we all teeter over at some point in our lives, and the collapse of order and familiarity in their life.
This is quite a bizarre read, though it's liveliness and chaos make it moreish. There's some echoes of Burroughs in there - Naked Lunch or The Soft Machine vibes - encapsulating the absurdity and vulgarity of life.
Translated from the Spanish by Sarah Booker, a very unnerving and unsettling read. Hardly enjoyable, but necessary. Again, another example of literature as mirror, reflecting back the ugly parts we sometimes refuse to see. Recommend.
Blood Red follows a nameless narrator following the failure of her marriage. It's unnerving, graphic - sexually charged and sensually carved. Its stream-of-consciousness narrative and fragmentation adds to its ambiguity as the narrator navigates a hellscape of loss and anguish.
It features a house that is cave-like, where mosses and ferns grow wildly, and cats and bats flutter erratically. The house is where the nameless narrator returns frequently, for ecstasy and alcohol infused rampant sex with a nameless man.
Trypophobia, or fear of repetitive holes, is a big feature throughout (hence the holes in the brilliant cover art). And while experts are still unclear of the phobia itself, in Blood Red it seems to be representative of danger, of an abyss that we all teeter over at some point in our lives, and the collapse of order and familiarity in their life.
This is quite a bizarre read, though it's liveliness and chaos make it moreish. There's some echoes of Burroughs in there - Naked Lunch or The Soft Machine vibes - encapsulating the absurdity and vulgarity of life.
Translated from the Spanish by Sarah Booker, a very unnerving and unsettling read. Hardly enjoyable, but necessary. Again, another example of literature as mirror, reflecting back the ugly parts we sometimes refuse to see. Recommend.
November 14, 2022
A wild and exhilarating ride.
February 28, 2024
Like other short works I’ve read by Hispanic women authors (Die, My Love, September and the Night, In Vitro), this Ecuadorian novella is intense, fragmentary, and obsessed with the female body and psyche. The unnamed narrator, a woman separated from her husband and freed from inhibitions, gives in to her substance and sex addictions – “For me, anything that isn’t falling in love has never merited much attention. That giddiness from proximity or bodies”. I was reminded of A Spy in the House of Love in that she flits compulsively from one lover to another, but Ponce is much more explicit than Nin. At least at the start, the sex scenes are almost constant and described in graphic detail. The narrator meets her lovers in warehouses and caves. Literal holes/orifices and blood are profuse, but also symbolically weighty, with fear of pregnancy also featuring heavily. I was impressed at how Booker rendered the stream-of-consciousness approach, which involves several-page paragraphs and metaphors of moths and moss. I wouldn’t say this was a pleasant book to spend time with, but the style and vocabulary made it worthy of note.
Originally published on my blog, Bookish Beck.
Originally published on my blog, Bookish Beck.
November 29, 2021
Esta novela me gustó muchísimo. La exploración que hace sobre la sexualidad y el erotismo lo transmite increíble tanto que me contagiaba la ansiedad por hacerlo también. Sin duda es un libro provocador y eso es lo que más me gustan. Narra la sexualidad de manera distinta, sin violencia ni muerte como otros escritores, aquí es puro goce. Aunado a eso, también me gusta las reflexiones sobre la maternidad y sobre la misma vida que tiene la protagonista.
December 22, 2023
Quick question I'll delete after I find an answer: Is the author's name Gabriela Ponce or Gabriela Ponce Padilla (I have a paperback copy from Restless Books that has Gabriela Ponce on the cover), but that's not the cover attached to this review)?
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Restless Book's submission longlisted for the inaugural U.S./Canada Republic of Consciousness Prize...
Not sure I can give this the fairest of reviews as it was the last book in the longlist I read for the prize and I was feeling major prize-reading burnout by the time I got to this one. Overall, I appreciated what a raw, intimate, and poetic approach Padilla takes to the body, desire, and grief. It's as if her character's libido sets forth on a drug/alcohol-induced hallucination of desire in order to fill the void created by loss (the death of her brother, the disintegration of her marriage). A poetic dive into the viscous realities of the flesh (props to translator Sarah Booker). It then mutates into what almost feels like a separate book as the short intense chapters give way to diary entries as the main character deals with an unwanted pregnancy.
---------------------------------------------------
A little background on the striking cover design by Kelly Winton:
https://spinemagazine.co/articles/kel...
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My Longlist Rankings for the U.S./Canada Republic of Consciousness Prize
1) Family Album: Stories by Gabriela Alemán
2) A New Name: Septology VI-VII by Jon Fosse
3) Moldy Strawberries: Stories by Caio Fernando Abreu
4) Get ’em Young, Treat ’em Tough, Tell ’em Nothing by Robin McLean
5) God's Children Are Little Broken Things: Stories by Arinze Ifeakandu (Prize Winner)
6) The Sleeping Car Porter by Suzette Mayr
7) New Animal by Ella Baxter
8) Blood Red by Gabriela Ponce Padilla
9) Pollak's Arm by Hans von Trotha
10) New and Selected Stories by Cristina Rivera Garza
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Restless Book's submission longlisted for the inaugural U.S./Canada Republic of Consciousness Prize...
"I gathered the most sentimental images that contained the desire for everything I was missing, that which I couldn’t figure out how to articulate, an old melancholy trying to make a place for itself or crash between the worlds and the words or perhaps it was just the need to organize the thoughts that the solitude and cold brought, a frequenting of my urgent intimacy."
Not sure I can give this the fairest of reviews as it was the last book in the longlist I read for the prize and I was feeling major prize-reading burnout by the time I got to this one. Overall, I appreciated what a raw, intimate, and poetic approach Padilla takes to the body, desire, and grief. It's as if her character's libido sets forth on a drug/alcohol-induced hallucination of desire in order to fill the void created by loss (the death of her brother, the disintegration of her marriage). A poetic dive into the viscous realities of the flesh (props to translator Sarah Booker). It then mutates into what almost feels like a separate book as the short intense chapters give way to diary entries as the main character deals with an unwanted pregnancy.
---------------------------------------------------
A little background on the striking cover design by Kelly Winton:
https://spinemagazine.co/articles/kel...
---------------------------------------------------
My Longlist Rankings for the U.S./Canada Republic of Consciousness Prize
1) Family Album: Stories by Gabriela Alemán
2) A New Name: Septology VI-VII by Jon Fosse
3) Moldy Strawberries: Stories by Caio Fernando Abreu
4) Get ’em Young, Treat ’em Tough, Tell ’em Nothing by Robin McLean
5) God's Children Are Little Broken Things: Stories by Arinze Ifeakandu (Prize Winner)
6) The Sleeping Car Porter by Suzette Mayr
7) New Animal by Ella Baxter
8) Blood Red by Gabriela Ponce Padilla
9) Pollak's Arm by Hans von Trotha
10) New and Selected Stories by Cristina Rivera Garza
August 16, 2023
Around the World Reading Challenge: ECUADOR
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Really fascinating book that is told in a series of vignettes following a woman in her late-thirties in the aftermath of her marriage breaking down. Definitely more experimental in style, which isn't usually my jam, but something about this really worked for me. The imagery throughout is a bit dark at times, but not overly so--gory is too strong a word, but there's things verge close to the graphic and gross at times, but it works. IDK, the writing here was really great and the woman in particular felt so visceral and real. It really felt like a brief window into the life and headspace of this woman and I found it quite compelling.
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Really fascinating book that is told in a series of vignettes following a woman in her late-thirties in the aftermath of her marriage breaking down. Definitely more experimental in style, which isn't usually my jam, but something about this really worked for me. The imagery throughout is a bit dark at times, but not overly so--gory is too strong a word, but there's things verge close to the graphic and gross at times, but it works. IDK, the writing here was really great and the woman in particular felt so visceral and real. It really felt like a brief window into the life and headspace of this woman and I found it quite compelling.
March 15, 2020
Sanguínea es una novela narrada con el cuerpo. Empieza con el romance entre la protagonista y un hombre desconocido, y a través de un lenguaje poético la historia de esta mujer avanza entre paradojas, entre deseos y metáforas. La simultaneidad es una constante en este libro, el sesgo del deseo. El final en formato de diario me parece impecable, y se lee con mucha más rapidez que el inicio. El final es una herida abierta.
July 17, 2025
Voy ser un poco dura en esta reseña, pero es que ha conseguido enfadarme.
Decepcionante a más no poder: lirismo exacerbado, sentimentaloide y vacío; argumento intrascendente, poco interesante y totalmente irrelevante; pulsión literaria construida a base de copias poco acertadas y exageradas del estilo de otras autoras de la misma generación o de concepciones literarias similares, y abuso injustificado de elementos escatológicos.
Soy la primera que valora las narraciones valientes y novedosas, el "cómo lo dice" por encima del "qué dice", los textos viscerales y el arriesgarse narratológicamente, pero es que este libro va cuesta abajo y sin frenos. Por no hablar de la protagonista, que se transforma en una niñata insoportable, egoísta e interesada (y no lo digo por sus actuaciones con respecto al hijo, sino por su total falta de desconsideración total con respecto a los demás). Quizás me molestaría menos si no sintiese que se trata de imponer al lector este modo de conducta.
Soporífero, mal escrito y mal planteado. Y lo peor: se tiene en grandísima consideración a sí mismo. Una y no más.
Decepcionante a más no poder: lirismo exacerbado, sentimentaloide y vacío; argumento intrascendente, poco interesante y totalmente irrelevante; pulsión literaria construida a base de copias poco acertadas y exageradas del estilo de otras autoras de la misma generación o de concepciones literarias similares, y abuso injustificado de elementos escatológicos.
Soy la primera que valora las narraciones valientes y novedosas, el "cómo lo dice" por encima del "qué dice", los textos viscerales y el arriesgarse narratológicamente, pero es que este libro va cuesta abajo y sin frenos. Por no hablar de la protagonista, que se transforma en una niñata insoportable, egoísta e interesada (y no lo digo por sus actuaciones con respecto al hijo, sino por su total falta de desconsideración total con respecto a los demás). Quizás me molestaría menos si no sintiese que se trata de imponer al lector este modo de conducta.
Soporífero, mal escrito y mal planteado. Y lo peor: se tiene en grandísima consideración a sí mismo. Una y no más.
February 14, 2023
This is a fever dream of a book. Well, it begins that way but evolves into something more coherent and meaningful. This book is a scream of the abandoned, the wounded, the aging… That is, it confronts the walls that rear up before us as we pass from the fiesta of youth into the uncertain paths of middle age.
I really admire how Ponce harnesses the energy of this narrative style, it never gets away from her and it ties together really well as the book progresses. All but one of the chapters are very short, and that one long chapter really stands out in contrast. Sanguínea begins as a really internal story that, bit by bit, moves out into the general.
This is not an easy book to get through, but it rewards the effort in a way that few novels do (particularly novels of this length). Worth checking out, and it was just published in English translation too.
I really admire how Ponce harnesses the energy of this narrative style, it never gets away from her and it ties together really well as the book progresses. All but one of the chapters are very short, and that one long chapter really stands out in contrast. Sanguínea begins as a really internal story that, bit by bit, moves out into the general.
This is not an easy book to get through, but it rewards the effort in a way that few novels do (particularly novels of this length). Worth checking out, and it was just published in English translation too.
September 11, 2025
Sanguínea se lee apenas como una novela. Mucho más parece poesía en prosa. Escrito en primera persona, la trama apenas está ahí como excusa para dar pautas a los pensamientos envolventes de la protagonista. En ese sentido, hay un gran trabajo detrás de ese personaje y en retratar su diálogo interno inagotable y elíptico, con imágenes frescas y muy bien logradas.
Personalmente pienso que debió ser un poco más contenida, hay muchos pasajes donde estas disquisiciones internas se desbordan hasta al absurdo. Y aunque comprendo que sea posible que precisamente eso haya querido retratar la autora, la verdad es que es demasiado. Al menos para mí. Y ese foco enorme en lo que atraviesa la mente de la protagonista impide que como lector en algún momento nos enganchemos realmente con la ficción (¿autoficción?) que nos trae.
Personalmente pienso que debió ser un poco más contenida, hay muchos pasajes donde estas disquisiciones internas se desbordan hasta al absurdo. Y aunque comprendo que sea posible que precisamente eso haya querido retratar la autora, la verdad es que es demasiado. Al menos para mí. Y ese foco enorme en lo que atraviesa la mente de la protagonista impide que como lector en algún momento nos enganchemos realmente con la ficción (¿autoficción?) que nos trae.
June 24, 2020
Novela de tono lírico que casi renuncia a la trama para describir las metamorfosis del cuerpo femenino a partir de diversas perturbaciones emocionales de la protagonista (sexo, depresión, menstruación, embarazó).
La edición en España es de la editorial Candaya.
La edición en España es de la editorial Candaya.
March 23, 2023
I really have no idea what to think about this book. I read it because it’s among the books in the short list for The Republic of Consciousness US/Can. At first I was hate reading it because who wants to read about divorce, divorce sex, and menstruation. The frenetic pace and lack of introspection combined to make it not particularly sexy, just miserable and boring. It didn’t draw me in until the narrator became pregnant. At this point the narrator lets us in on her thoughts and feelings about her relationships and her pregnancy. For me, after going through all this shit myself I want to read more about the life of the mind and less about the body. But, the writing of the second part was mesmerizing and one line sticks out. “I constantly mix up the men.”
2 for the first part and 4 for the second part.
2 for the first part and 4 for the second part.
February 22, 2023
2.5
This was 'die, my love' on speed
This was 'die, my love' on speed
October 13, 2024
3.5⭐️
i liked it. i hated it. im not sure. i just remember being really grossed out at some point, but the second part of the book saved it from dropping below a 3 star. At times, i felt like i was intruding into someone's ( really really really) inner thoughts and feelings. It did not feel nice, but i understood why it had to be that way to tell this story.
i liked it. i hated it. im not sure. i just remember being really grossed out at some point, but the second part of the book saved it from dropping below a 3 star. At times, i felt like i was intruding into someone's ( really really really) inner thoughts and feelings. It did not feel nice, but i understood why it had to be that way to tell this story.
June 18, 2025
This book is like drinking a glass of red wine and feeling it creeping into your bloodstream, the tipsy sway of your head and thoughts.
Beautiful. Raw. Unfiltered. Unexpected.
Lovely to drink in and sit with.
Beautiful. Raw. Unfiltered. Unexpected.
Lovely to drink in and sit with.
May 27, 2020
Leer “Sanguínea” es cómo leer un diario. La novela es visceral y tan íntima que sentí que estaba leyendo algo que no debía, no porque lo que me confesaba era malo si no porque no sé si alguien se atrevería a hablar con tal franqueza, sin censura ni moral, del sexo, del placer y del deseo.
La novela tiene pasajes hermosos, llenos de poesía y confesiones brutalmente honestas que me dejaron alucinado. Es un “stream of consciousness” que te lleva un viaje a través de las vivencias del cuerpo de nuestra protagonista sin nombre que está atrapada entre la memoria y la fantasía, el deseo y la cordura, hombres, amistades, familias y su propios traumas.
Esa prosa poética que es tan visceral y produce un vértigo que representa la fuerza con la que te agarra, siempre desprevenido, el amor, la obsesión y el deseo.
La novela tiene pasajes hermosos, llenos de poesía y confesiones brutalmente honestas que me dejaron alucinado. Es un “stream of consciousness” que te lleva un viaje a través de las vivencias del cuerpo de nuestra protagonista sin nombre que está atrapada entre la memoria y la fantasía, el deseo y la cordura, hombres, amistades, familias y su propios traumas.
Esa prosa poética que es tan visceral y produce un vértigo que representa la fuerza con la que te agarra, siempre desprevenido, el amor, la obsesión y el deseo.
February 21, 2024
The first book I've DNFed in years. Maybe it's just not my style, but the prose seemed to make no sense. I wouldn't even consider this book gory, it's just so abstract it becomes nonsensical and it often feels like you're reading an essay of someone trying to reach the word count on an assignment. Probably my least enjoyable read in about two years!
November 17, 2021
"Trato de entenderme, pero cada cosa que hago me sorprende de mí misma, como si fuera yo una amalgama incognoscible, llena de errores, herida abierta juntándose y dividiéndose, siempre debatiéndome entre la censura y la autoconmiseración"
October 23, 2022
Wowwwww the narrator is wild asf. I loved it!!!!! Dark, beautiful and disturbing. Full review incoming 😅
February 5, 2023
Loved this book, I'd say the first half in particular was the standout portion of the book. A woman, her marriage reeling, while she recovers from her brother's passing, starts an affair with a dude living in a cave like home--she calls it a cave anyway. There's lots of plants, he reminded me of certain hipster dudes I went to college with, guys that didn't have jobs, whose parents funded their lives, but also slept on plywood instead of a mattress. It was quite an intense, physical relationship. The book was slightly hallucinatory, didn't really follow a typical trajectory, but at some point past halfway, she winds up pregnant and makes the decision to give the baby up for adoption. The rest of the book is about her relationship w/ M, the conflict of emotions of being pregnant and wanting to give it up. The writing was very good, very cool. And it turns out I'm a big fan of the translator as I've enjoyed books she's translated in the past: Iliac Crest and Jawbone.
September 17, 2024
Before reading this book I would suggest looking at the trigger warnings.
Having said that, this book covers a range of complexities of womanhood and the breakdown of relationships. Often graphic descriptions intentionally leave you feeling uncomfortable but wanting to read more.
The dark nature of this is also somewhat refreshing as it doesn’t feel overly forced or written for shock value.
Having said that, this book covers a range of complexities of womanhood and the breakdown of relationships. Often graphic descriptions intentionally leave you feeling uncomfortable but wanting to read more.
The dark nature of this is also somewhat refreshing as it doesn’t feel overly forced or written for shock value.
April 8, 2023
some of this was very disjointed, most likely because of the translation, but i still enjoyed it
Read
August 28, 2023dnf
September 12, 2024
I have never read anything like this— the themes of hysteria, and the eeriness and body horror of being a woman …. Magical
April 25, 2025
day 1/11 of finishing all of my currently reading books <333
one of the best most erotic personal intertwined books i’ve ever read - will think about this for a long time
one of the best most erotic personal intertwined books i’ve ever read - will think about this for a long time
September 11, 2024
Picked up and put down this book many times. Bought it in Fredericksburg after camping with Lauren in one of their book stores. Some parts made me uncomfortable but I liked following the train of thought and reading about the pregnancy
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