Hurricane Season - Fernanda Melchor BOOK REVIEW

[@BetterThanFoodBookReviews]

Big thanks to Ridge for sending me this wallet and supporting the channel! Here’s the site if you want to check them out! > ridge.com/BETTERTHANFOOD

[@kursverzeichnis1297]

Clifftony Sargetano

[@irena7777777]

Going to check out one of those wallets. They look great. Love your reviews by the way. Can I just ask; what are your 5 favourite books of all time?

[@goran9355]

When will you review No Longer Human?

[@adrianalozanogarza8539]

I actually interviewed Fernanda Melchor for a small literary magazine I had with some friends when we were at university 6 or 7 years ago. She was just starting publishing and she was so nice and open and funny with us. I first heard of her when she read a short story for a literary event in Monterrey, her story was very sexual and very disturbing but funny and interesting. It has been interesting to see her develop her style and themes. She's very talented and I'm glad she has been receiving recognition. Thanks for the review! I'm always intrigued by your book choices.

[@morellaalmann8694]

Would you be able to link the interview if it’s online?

[@jonmarie9370]

Amazon UK should pay you as I have bought 20 books from them during this quarantine, all books are recommended by this channel.

[@ARG3NFIFA]

@thebestever475 how, bookstores are closed and they have no service online

[@carsonknighten6804]

If you use his link he will get a small percentage of your purchase from Amazon affiliate

[@bossaddict08]

Dude, you’re recommendations have opened a whole new world and aspect of reading. This has positively influenced my way of thinking and perception. I love the books you read. I’ll give this a try. Obscene Madame D was incredible. Hard to verbalize but incredible. Thank you. Keep it up.

[@angiedilaj]

Agreed! Cliff will always be my first go to for book recommendations

[@luiscervantes892]

I’m an 18 year old Mexican and I really love your videos. I did know temporada de huracanas but I wasn’t completely sure of reading it, now with your amazing thoughts on it I really want to read it. I really admire your way of addressing not only literature, but also art and life in general. You’ve help me to finish the building of my literary taste and completing my thoughts regarding life. Your way of commenting books is so personal and at the same time so relatable. Thank you from Mexico City

[@omer-sela-rothenberg]

I've been watching your channel for years but didn't know you reviewed this one. Just finished it today - An absolutely gut wrenching assault that simply doesn't let down for a second. Easily made its way to the top ten books I've ever read.

[@juliodehostos2052]

I read this about two months ago after 2666 by Bolaño and i have to tell you that it messed me up. It shook me to my core. Melchor isn't afraid of making the reader feel uncomfortable or disgusted, she goes where she feels the story needs to go. Its an amazing book that i feel is necessary. We sometimes forget that things like the ones described on the book happen. Reality cannot be ignored. Thank you for the review! Also, if you would like to read more contemporary latin american literature i recommend Mariana Enriquez. Last year she wrote a book calles "Nuestra Parte de Noche" and it's amazing. I don't know if it has been translated to english, but whenever you can get your hands in it i fully recommend it. She also has a short story collection called "The Things We Lost in the Fire". I really recommend it. With that you get a taste of her voice and work. She's amazing.

[@MrDiego0000170796]

Translating this thing into english must have been a daunting task, I don't think there are enough bad words in english available

[@shaunaholman6852]

I just started Hurricane Season. Great review as always.

[@homboboev2599]

I love every one of your videos. Please never stop. You are the only KZbinr that I genuinely love to listen to. I hope more people will get to watch and enjoy your videos because they are truly amazing. Thank you!

[@kingma1513]

I started reading this book the day you posted this review. Been holding off watching until I had finished... I have to say - I love this book. My favourite I have read this year. Your review was great and encapsulates what makes this book great far more eloquently than I can.

[@MiguelAChavez23]

Read this now. Found out about it from listening to an interview with Mariana Enriquez. Come to found out you did this video! Awesome. The book is a whirlwind so far. Sheesh!

[@davida.rosales6025]

"Wherever you're afraid to go, she goes there." I must read this. I just discovered Fernanda Melchor in an interview alongside Rodrigo Fresán. Glad to find this review of one of her novels in your channels, because it just bumped her book up the priority list significantly.

[@juditabarkauskaite]

Just finished reading and thought that I should look up whether it was translated in English and recommended to you. And here I find that you reviewed it 2 years ago. Awesome book and your review too!

[@efleishermedia]

New Directions is becoming the A24 of literature. Really solid intense titles. I've been trying to find a work of fiction that gives me the sense of true gothic horror that Ari Aster's Hereditary gave me, something that actually legit scared me. This was it. The prose, the levels and layers of neurosis, the depictions of rural communities wraught with corruption. But I think the idea of this story as archetypal is dead on. The horror is completely wraught with a feeling of grotesque and kind of nauseating deja vu, like something so plainly horrifying it has to have existed somewhere.

[@mikegseclecticreads]

Love what you said at 10:17. So true, the brilliance of this book for me is that she makes us see how despicable the antagonists are, right up until the point where we realize that even the more sympathetic characters of the are basically becoming future antagonists because it's what society forces them to do. Brando's narrative really brings this point home. Thanks for this review, this really helped me to appreciate the book more deeply.

[@kevinreese740]

Wow, I'm glad I discovered your reviews. You are quite brilliant, and I enjoy just listening to you talk. You've convinced me that I must run out and find Hurricane Season ASAP. Thanks.

[@NicoleBernadette]

I need to get my hands on this book.

[@CyriacusSorokin]

Dear Cliff Today marks the day of finally catching up with your videos. I started binge-watching your videos in March when isolation was mandatory in Cyprus, so during the two months of lockdown you were a good entertaining company. I'm your follower since your first videos, when you still had John Waters' quote as the outro motto of your videos. I took a break from social media last year so I had a lot of things to see; but thanks to covid-19 I decided to catch up with your videos. So after four months I'm finally watching freshly released videos. Keep up the good work! P.S. Maybe in the future I'll arrange to send you a classic book from Cyprus. I'm very interested to see your thoughts on it, whether its better than food or not. Best, Kyriakos

[@bobhopper609]

I appreciate the inclusion of what you dislike in your recent reviews. I feel like it helps me understand the books better. Also, I just bought The Peregrine thanks to you, and I can't wait to finish that and check this one out. Thanks for the great content.

[@keatonthecretin3080]

I recently got a copy of The Femicide Machine by Sergio González Rodríguez for my birthday, which is an excellent critical analysis of the phenomena of femicide in Ciudad Juárez. Bolaño and Rodríguez compared notes, as 2666 was being written at the same time.

[@Pantano63]

González also appears as a character in 2666.

[@antonioc4545]

I just finished this novel and I was lucky to read it in Spanish. The one reaction that I kept having to some of the passages and long run on sentences in this novel was sudden laughter. Not in a bad way but it just seemed like the only way for me to react to some of the themes, stories and vulgar language and actions that were however beautifully written. It's one of the best books I've read in quite a while and I highly recommend it to anyone that wants to read something that pushes the boundaries and forces you out of your comfort zone.

[@TeatroGrotesco]

Thanks for not calling your show some pun or twist on "Cliff Notes." Also thanks for your great reviews and showing so many great authors I might never have found. Your wide eyed honesty is awesome and refreshing.

[@somebenfen]

This book! It was a tough read but I ended up finding it very powerful. I hope it wins the international booker prize.

[@ryanhorner1416]

I found this book to be one of the most bad ass reads ever. Excellent review, as always!

[@robertelder5770]

Downloaded ebook from my library. Going to read it today!

[@thesecondson30]

Just finished Hurricane Season. Loved it. Page 209 with the Grandfather was like nothing I have ever read before. Amazing. Cheers.

[@AccipiterF1]

You sold me on a book. Usually I'm content to enjoy watching you suffer the existential dread you get from reading what you do. But this time? I gotta read it too.

[@keatonthecretin3080]

Idk if I'm the first to recommend this, but I think you'd very much enjoy the Sand Child by Tahar Ben Jelloun. It's a very dark tale of gender dysphoria and the conditions of post-colonial Morocco, and involves a fictionalized Borges at one point in the end. It uses magical realism to both critique and pay homage to traditional Islamic culture in a way that reminds of Deleuzian nomadism. Jelloun translated For Bread Alone by Mohamed Choukri into French (another great work of Moroccan fiction, and Choukri wrote many great memoirs of time spent with Jean Genet, Paul Bowles, and Tennessee Williams), and he (Jelloun) was even a Nobel recipient. Some real head candy worthy of your caliber of literature.

[@haileyelianna4978]

My boyfriend is currently reading that in French!!! What a small world, stuff like this always blows my mind.

[@leandrohblara]

Thank you for the Review! I Think you are the Best!

[@EricKarlAnderson]

Great review! It's an incredible novel and I found it completely hypnotic. I hope it wins the International Booker!

[@dropofhoney333]

I'm currently waiting for my library to get Hurricane Season to me. This review has me all the more excited. Gotta love the dark parts of the psyche + occultism.

[@Morfeusm]

Melanie Sarah did you read it?

[@ramadhan1481]

I got some shivers watching this review

[@haroldniver]

This has been on my pile for some time, once I finish 1Q84 I’ll have to finally pick it up. Thanks for the review.

[@5hif7yx86]

Fernanda Melchor is an amazing writer. her other book Paradise was just as impressive. Ill read anything she puts out.

[@ciganyweaverandherperiwink6293]

This is a really good channel, glad I found it.

[@dhruvkandhari8398]

You really must review Milan Kundera’s ‘The Unbearable Lightness of Being’ and ‘The Book of Laughter and Forgetting’. Both of them are absolute masterpieces. In my view, he is the greatest living writer.

[@goran9355]

The Unbearable Lightness of Being is long overdue it's unbearable not to see it on this channel.

[@dhruvkandhari8398]

Go Ran I agree with you completely. It is amazing. Although, if you haven’t, read The Book of Laughter and Forgetting, it is my favourite book of all time.

[@zhayes01]

You sold me at twin peaks. So thank you. I'll look into it for sure.

[@Morfeusm]

Zach Hayes did you read it?

[@zhayes01]

@@Morfeusm not yet. I'll probably read it in October when the paperback comes out.

[@kanelowrey4089]

Just ordered the book, should have it next week.

[@ciganyweaverandherperiwink6293]

I'd love to know whether or not you liked the Vernon Subutex series. And Gene Gregorits-- I'd be really interested in a video talking about what you make of his work.

[@electrawolf5855]

As always, your recommendation is sounding like something right up my alley. I'll get it.

[@Edmolda]

Dear Cliff, Thanks to you I’ve started reading this amazing book! It’s mesmerizing (and creepy)! Love your work! PS: I would like to suggest a book named “Blood-Drenched Beard” by Daniel Galera. I think you would enjoy it! Kind regards from Brazil!

[@Wasp9513]

Woo!! you should also read Marta Sanz, Maria Gainza, Mariana Enriquez, Edurne Portela, Guadalupe Nettel, Alejandra Costamagna and many more young spanish speaking woman writers. There is quite a big movement going on.

[@MsLoila]

Carmen Maria Machado, valeria luiselli, Samantha schweblin ^

[@air9music]

That "gossipy" quality reminds me a little bit of the beat writers. Their style lent itself very well to depicting such conversations, even when not using spontaneous prose explicitly. Btw, take care, things don't seem very good in Portland 🙁

[@LS-fg6vv]

I bought this book on sale a bit ago and have had it on the back burner for a bit, but based off of the recommendations I've gotten here in the past, I think I'll move it forward. The last author I found on your reviews was Silvina Ocampo and I couldn't get enough. With this, I'm admittedly both excited and a bit nervous Side note. Do you think you'd ever be open to reviewing Marcela Serrano, José Donoso or Eileen Chang?

[@elgordo9525]

Right from the beginning, I got a Donald Goines feel to the novel. Life ain't sweet in the ghetto feel to La Matosa.

[@erbrady93]

Been recommending this to everybody that would listen since I read it a few months ago. Truly a sublime read Sophie Hughes has also done a great translation of 'the hole' by Jose Revueltas. Also you should check out 'drive your plow over the bones of the dead' by Olga Tokarczuk. In the same vein as HS, only in snowy back country Poland. Cheers

[@esunsalmista]

I think the difference in the daily realities of the US and of Mexico is evident when I hear people describe this book. I haven't heard an American not call it dark. These things really do happen in Mexico. I suppose the dark part is that there are people who don't view the book as dark.

[@lalitborabooks]

Amazing review as always. As for your Father’s dream you should definitely turn it into a novel or novella.

[@MatthewMan1997]

Wasn't planning on buying a book today, but I guess now I have to. Reading 2666 now, and I'm a huge David Lynch fan.

[@emiliocontreras7407]

It's something so profundly inhuman: this novel reaches the very filth of what Is left from humanity. It goes deeper than violence; it's beyond horror.

[@KadeMac]

Another fantastic video. Another entertainingly meticulous review.

[@sandraoropeza1888]

My netx reading! Have you read Mariana Enriquez?

[@richardrichard6383]

And the skinny girl with the enormous black dog with yellow sock-clad paws. Truly, truly great literature.

[@ricardobritojr.2663]

I was sold 6 minutes in and then you just kept going for 15 more minutes lol. Now I'm waiting for your review of Savage Detectives, low-key even better than 2666.

[@alvaroromanoff4267]

Mexican power ❤️❤️❤️❤️, im so proud for Fernanda, UNA GRAN VERACRUZANA QUE ESTÁ CONQUISTANDO EL MUNDO

[@Brian-zg7gd]

Have you ever thought about reviewing the road? Or a brief history of seven killings? Gravity's rainbow? Love the channel btw I wouldnt have read fernando passoa cormac mccarthy lidia yuknavitch georges bataille among others. I cant thank you enough man. Fucking amazing work.

[@idahellblau8513]

Yeh this book is straight up legit. Wow. What a ride. Some of the scenes are burned in my eye.

[@Tablelegs123]

Amparo Davila, I could see her being an influence.

[@Alex-rz3hy]

The auto generated captions said your “mare got tear gassed” and I was horrified until I figured out the mistake.

[@belsantos2918]

I recomend Mariana Enriquez, her novel Our part of night. Sorry my english of the worst.

[@whatchachattin]

It isn't out in English just yet unfortunately

[@mariodiaz3976]

I didn't know Arthur Shelby read so much

[@jonmarie9370]

Uncanny! Haha

[@adamskorupskas2184]

How do you get such ill style my friend?

[@zouhourz1069]

I will buy it 😍

[@brianandremorteomedina4128]

I live in Veracruz, in a town very much like the one in the book. Man... It's delightfuly awful

[@donniedewitt9878]

Stay safe man

[@Vic-mc6tb]

Melchor was heavily inspired by Truman Capote's In Cold Blood. That might be a better comparison than the obvious latin American authors.

[@marcelhidalgo1076]

Did he say his "mare got tear gassed" or his "marriage just got tear gas"? He owns a mare?

[@MyFakeIronTrees]

mayor

[@boerenkool]

Mayor ... of Portland

[@sewerbabyyyy]

the Portland, OR mayor got tear gassed at a protest a couple days ago

[@marcelhidalgo1076]

HAHA Thank you for clarification (Anyone else fee l like he was mumbling a bit at the beginning of this video?

[@aniketsanyal5586]

@@marcelhidalgo1076 I genuinely heard "marriage got tear gassed" and got worried about that! Was looking for a similar comment, this thread cleared things up thankfully

[@palomavalencia1117]

In spanish, it isn’t an easy read, actually I had to listen to the audiobook while reading but it was even better. It’s narrated by a former mexican child actress and the thing is: it’s an experience, like watching the most dark telenovela, full of mexican slang and information my small chilean brain couldn’t peak up only by reading it. Also, on Spotify there is a small playlist with all the songs named in the book: open.spotify.com/user/12184178510/playlist/0RvS9kUe5o0BpV7uzhUyPi?si=qKh4LXemT2q8CdTn1-NWmg

[@morganoconnor141]

Not easy to read in English as well, especially for my tiny brain. The playlist helps, gracias.

[@belsantos2918]

Gracias Paloma, la narración es impecable.

[@kodsbrahmi930]

Please read and review Ḥaddat̲a Abū Hurayrat, qāla by Mahmoud al- Messadi. It is an arabic classic. Thank you so much for the wonderful videos!

[@zakwan10]

I downloaded a sample off the recommendation here on my Kindle, and found it a tough read. Not because of the content, but because of the structure, no paragraphs, run on sentences, I had to stop. Maybe I will give it another chane in the future.

[@FHK1817]

If it is possible please keep the ads at the end of the video the ads cut the pace of the review thanks a bunch

[@haroldniver]

If they’re at the end no one will see them. The point is for them to be seen. I don’t like ads but if it supports Cliff, I’ll endure them.

[@TheRealPeachesStalin]

I wish I felt less like George Costanza.

[@haroldniver]

You and me both... ugh.

[@eireannmacauley9179]

Holy shit write that screen play or I will.

[@antigaia1817]

More Dostoevsky!!!!

[@suredeydo]

$125 for a wallet?! 🧐

[@croinkix]

Sorry to hear you marriage is being tear gassed I hope you guys find some gas masks or something

[@CaioMGA]

Finish your damn screenplay

[@hihi6666hihittt]

oh you're getting divorced? Review Infinite Jest then, you've got no excuse now

[@choggerboom]

My memory may be failing me here, but I believe he already reviewed that

[@croinkix]

@@choggerboom he doesn't like it he doesn't see the point of reviewing books he doesn't like

[@MichaelWilliams-bx2ty]

Portlanndddd

[@dylankelly2024]

2 minutes of advertising? Really?

[@marioabnercolina5931]

Congratulations on your channel. It's great. The book, on the other hand, is good but overrated. I'm sorry. It is a pale imitation of José Donoso, the torrent of his prose and his dark scenarios.