Name: Arie P's review of The Houseguest: And Other Stories by Amparo Dávila
Item: The Houseguest: And Other Stories
Rating: 4
Author: Arie P

Amparo Dávila

The first collection in English of an endlessly surprising, master storyteller Like those of Kafka, Poe, Leonora Carrington, or Shirley Jackson, Amparo Dávila’s stories are terrifying, mesmerizing, and expertly crafted—you’ll finish each one gasping for air.With acute psychological insight, Dávila follows her characters to the limits of desire, paranoia, insomnia, and fear. She is a writer obsessed with obsession, who makes nightmares come to life through the everyday: loneliness sinks in easily like a razor-sharp knife, some sort of evil lurks in every shadow, delusion takes the form of strange and very real creatures. After reading The Houseguest—Dávila’s debut collection in English—you’ll wonder how this secret was kept for so long.

The Houseguest: And Other Stories

Like those of Kafka or Poe, Amparo Dávila's stories are masterful, terrifying, and mesmerizing--you'll finish reading each story gasping for air. With acute psychological insight, Dávila follows her characters to the limits of desire, paranoia, insomnia, loneliness, and fear. She is a writer obsessed with obsession, she makes nightmares come to life through the everyday: loneliness sinks in easily like a razor-sharp knife, some form of evil lurks in every shadow, delusion takes the form of strange and very real creatures. After reading The Houseguest, her debut collection in English, you'll wonder how this secret was kept for so long.

And Other Stories

The Houseguest

Klara Hansen 

“…Only death is final, everything else has a solution, things can change, this will be temporary, a painful moment-”

Aneeqa Nawer

They are fast-paced and written as if wanting to leave you behind. Its a creeping narration that leaves you cold and needing a blanket lol.

Arie P

They are fast-paced and written as if wanting to leave you behind. Its a creeping narration that leaves you cold and needing a blanket lol.

4 stars for the following stories:

Moses and Gaspar

The Houseguest

The Funeral

5 stars:

Musique Concrète

prawnie

the houseguest was actually my favorite story out of all of them

Isabella 

the buildup for each story was so thrilling but most endings were such a let down; it would abruptly end and would leave me confused. it does give the spooky feeling, but i was expecting more from the stories. it would have been nice if we were able to delve into it

Kendall McClain

shaball

Lotte Herremans

Ana Hein

Stef

It's just ordinary stories with unsaid endings. It's good to remind me of Poe's and Kafka's stories.

eliz

enjoyed 4 out of 12 short stories (moses and gaspar / the houseguest/ fragment of a diary / the breakfast).

The more research I do into the astounding Amparo Dávila the more I uncover and it truly has changed my reading experience. Dávila’s childhood formulated and impacted her writing style with her fascination for the grim and death coming from an early memory where she recalls “dead bodies driven in carts past her house; the surrounding towns had no cemeteries, and the dead had to be transported to her town for burial. The sight of the corpses, sometimes barely covered by sheets”

Each story is a sharp witted gut punch highlighting the theme of violence each in unique ways, creating a narrative that sticks with you after ending, most often left with many questions and a distinct feeling of a dreamlike state.

I thoroughly enjoyed these stories and quickly have added Dávila to my favourite authors list.

jaz ☁️

The more research I do into the astounding Amparo Dávila the more I uncover and it truly has changed my reading experience. Dávila’s childhood formulated and impacted her writing style with her fascination for the grim and death coming from an early memory where she recalls “dead bodies driven in carts past her house; the surrounding towns had no cemeteries, and the dead had to be transported to her town for burial. The sight of the corpses, sometimes barely covered by sheets”

Each story is a sharp witted gut punch highlighting the theme of violence each in unique ways, creating a narrative that sticks with you after ending, most often left with many questions and a distinct feeling of a dreamlike state.

I thoroughly enjoyed these stories and quickly have added Dávila to my favourite authors list.

donna 

while i appreciated the dark themes throughout “the houseguest and other stories”, in many cases the delivery turned me off or left me disinterested. it’s possible some of this was due to the translation, but likely not much of it. 

the first couple of stories featured first-person narrators with flat tones and little personality. these two stories as well as several others rely on similar tropes- the kind of repetitivenesses i find irksome in a collection. 

as a reader my perspective felt too distant- i wanted to be pulled further in. 

Maryam 

Interesting concepts but the style’s not for me. The obscurity is not unsettling personally, just silly.

Jen Estrella

Creepy, kind of like Junji Ito writing Prose? I haven't read Poe yet so I can't compare, but I plan to soon. I should mention that the last 3 or four stories are the most terrifying for me. Love <3

Tori Shamlian

I thought these stories were interesting, but too many of them felt indistinguishable for me. The majority felt like the same story with slight tweaks. The ones that stood out to me most were “The Funeral” and “The Last Summer,” both of which I recommend to fans of Kafka’s work.

Aneeqa Nawer &
The Houseguest: And Other Stories by Amparo Dávila

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Aneeqa Nawer &The Houseguest: And Other Stories by Amparo Dávila

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Highlights

Join the club

Aneeqa Nawer &
The Houseguest: And Other Stories by Amparo Dávila