RaveLigeia Magazine... easy to swallow prose with stomach churning subject matter ... The formula couldn’t be more simplistic—this is a murder mystery through and through. Everyone wants to know who killed the Witch. In fact, we get the answer early in the novel, but the grisly particulars of why and how the Witch was murdered are not revealed until the gut wrenching conclusion ... Melchor’s use of a nonlinear structure compliments the dizzying array of voices, which often shift within a single sentence. These seamless transitions between the kaleidoscopic perspectives are spectacular reminiscent of Evan Dara’s criminally underread masterpiece The Lost Scrapbook. Long, winding sentences can become cumbersome, but Melchor manages to bring a certain measure of control to even the most unwieldy lines, some of which span several pages ... Reading Hurricane Season is a constant guessing game, but this makes it all the more satisfying to decipher the clues ... Hughes’ English translation captures this reality by maintaining the poetic integrity of the original Spanish, especially in those page-length sentences, which savor the flexibility of language. Hughes also strategically peppers untranslated Spanish phrases and Mexican colloquialisms, adding a unique patois. Yes, the Spanish is in italics—a convention that has become increasingly senseless to me—but thankfully Hughes is careful not to overdo it ... The book is rife with delightful profanities and slang ... even the most vicious characters are written with indelible nuance. Many are both callous and compassionate in equal measure. I find this effect disturbing as it forces the reader to sympathize with characters who have committed heinous crimes. Morality becomes muddled as the novel progresses, blurring the line between good and evil until they become almost indistinguishable ... Melchor has delivered an intensely engaging and thought provoking new novel ... She explores the consequences of repressed sexuality and unchecked lust, giving a scathing yet empathetic critique of not only Mexican society but humanity as a whole. This book is challenging in its depictions of violence—especially against children—yet this is what also makes it an incredibly brave and compelling work. The narrative is as dark as it gets. Still, Melchor manages to inject a measure of hope at the novel’s conclusion. The hurricane brings destruction and misery, while also creating the conditions necessary for new growth, new life. The cycle of nature mirrors the cycle of trauma, until the rain washes everything away.
