Book Talk | The Devil Takes You Home

 
Hey ya'll! So I was volunteering for the San Antonio Book Festival this year and after my volunteer shift, of course I had to roam the grounds. For those of you who may not know, the San Antonio Book Festival invites a bunch of Texas-based authors to come out and talk about their craft, their advice, their writing pains and much more. Whoever the featured authors are, there is a giant tent with all of their newest books for purchase. This year, I walked around the tent until I came upon this book. The cover/title intrigued me, but it was the synopsis that really reeled me in. I've been in a assassin mood recently and this was right up my alley. Here are my full thoughts on The Devil Takes You Home by Gabino Iglesias.

About the Author 

Gabino Iglesias is a writer, journalist, professor, and literary critic living in Austin, TX. He is also the author of the critically acclaimed and award-winning novels Zero Saints and Coyote Songs. Iglesias' nonfiction has appeared in the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, Electric Literature, and LitReactor, and his reviews appear regularly in places like NPR, Publishers Weekly, the San Francisco Chronicle, the Boston Globe, Criminal Element, Mystery Tribune, Vol. 1 Brooklyn, and the Los Angeles Review of Books. He's been a juror for the Shirley Jackson Awards twice and the Millions Tournament of Books, and is a member of the Horror Writers Association, the Mystery Writers of America, and the National Book Critics Circle.

 

About the Book 

Buried in debt due to his young daughter’s illness, his marriage at the brink, Mario reluctantly takes a job as a hitman, surprising himself with his proclivity for violence. After tragedy destroys the life he knew, Mario agrees to one final job: hijack a cartel’s cash shipment before it reaches Mexico. Along with an old friend and a cartel-insider named Juanca, Mario sets off on the near-suicidal mission, which will leave him with either a cool $200,000 or a bullet in the skull. But the path to reward or ruin is never as straight as it seems. As the three complicated men travel through the endless landscape of Texas, across the border and back, their hidden motivations are laid bare alongside nightmarish encounters that defy explanation. One thing is certain: even if Mario makes it out alive, he won’t return the same.

My Thoughts

This book is not for the faint of heart. It's a good read, but there are a lot of heavy topics in this 305 page story. Our main character, Mario, goes through a lot of turmoil and heartbreak from losing his daughter to cancer, to losing his wife, to losing his mind. From these hardships, our author is able to do a great job of having our character react in a realistic way with anger, sadness, regrets and all the feelings you feel when life keeps throwing you unripened lemons. 

We don't only go through the motions with our character, but we also get a great glimpse into his thought. Our author transmits us into the mind of someone who has lost it all and has given into the anger and the resentment. He does a great job of letting us into the thought process of Mario and how he comes to the conclusions that he does. 

I also find it interesting how juxtaposed our main character has about faith. He gets angry with God and I believe there is a moment where Mario completely doesn't believe in him. But when he thinks of his daughter, his faith comes back. It's this interesting take on how we as humans want to get angry at someone and therefore choose the one entity that we think we can break, but at the same time, we all want to believe that there's something beyond this life. Maybe I'm looking into this a little hard, but I just found this to be an interesting take.

There are plenty of twists and turns that occur throughout the story and it's a good read for those who have heavier stomachs. Overall, I enjoyed my time reading The Devil  Takes You Home and I recommend to put on your shelves. 

 

Until next time, happy reading!