scijessreads

At the end of Mayra, my first thought was “what did I just read? What happened?!” And for me this is a mark of a good horror book. Horror where there aren’t jump scares and gore, but horror where you feel like you’re slowly losing your mind and are lost in a fever dream. Horror where when you come out the other side, all you want to do is run far away and pretend nothing ever happened.

Mayra is built on a story of toxic friendship. A friendship where we find that each friend has their own version of how things happened. Maybe a friendship that is (at least on one side) a little co-dependent? Ingrid feels like a character that knows herself only in relation to how she exists with or without Mayra, the erstwhile friend that grew up with no boundaries and keeps leaving places and people behind.

When Ingrid and Mayra meet again, it is at a hidden house in the everglades owned by Benji (Mayra’s boyfriend). And over a long weekend, Ingrid is drawn into the idea that in the swamp, maybe things are better. There are no expectations other than to be there. But Ingrid is also drawn back into the orbit of Mayra, their push-and-pull friendship, and the strange sense that Benji and the house and the swamp are not what they seem.

The pacing is slow, but deliberate. And early on you start getting glimpses that something is amiss in the heat of the marshes. Atmospherically, this one was perfect, with the house and the environment just as much a character as Ingrid, Mayra, and Benji. For fans of insidious, creeping unease and the taking apart of a friendship that perhaps should never have been, this is a book worth checking out.

I read this early as an ARC from Netgalley and the publisher. All opinions are my own. Book comes out today!