We came to welcome you : a novel of suburban horror

We came to welcome you A novel of suburban horror

Vincent Tirado

Book - 2024

"The Other Black Girl meets Midsommar in this spine-chilling, propulsive psychological adult debut from highly acclaimed author Vincent Tirado, in which a married couple moves into a gated "community" that slowly creeps into a pervasive dread akin to the social horror of Jordan Peele and Lovecraft County-We Came to Welcome You cleverly uses the uncanny to illuminate the cultish, shocking nature of systemic racism. Where beauty lies, secrets are held...ugly ones. Sol Reyes has had a rough year. After a series of workplace incidents at her university lab culminates in a plagiarism accusation, Sol is put on probation. Dutiful visits to her homophobic father aren't helping her mental health, and she finds her nightly glass o...f wine becoming more of an all-day-and all-bottle-event. Her wife, Alice Song, is far more optimistic. After all, the two finally managed to buy a house in the beautiful, gated community of Maneless Grove. However, the neighbors are a little too friendly in Sol's opinion. She has no interest in the pushy Homeowners Association, their bizarrely detailed contract, or their never-ending microaggressions. But Alice simply attributes their pursuit to the community motto: "Invest in a neighborly spirit"...which only serves to irritate Sol more. Suddenly, a number of strange occurrences-doors and stairs disappearing, roots growing inside the house-cause Sol to wonder if her social paranoia isn't built on something more sinister. Yet Sol's fears are dismissed as Alice embraces their new home and becomes increasingly worried instead about Sol's drinking and manic behavior. When Sol finds a journal in the property from a resident that went missing a few years ago, she realizes why they were able to buy the house so easily... Through Sol's razor-sharp tongue and macabre sense of humor, Tirado explores the very real pressures to assimilate with one's surroundings to "survive," while also asking the question: Is it survival when you're no longer your true self? Because in Maneless Grove, either you become a good neighbor-or you die"--

Saved in:
Place a Hold Save to List Email this

1st Floor New Shelf Show me where

FICTION/Tirado Vincent
1 / 1 copies available
Location Call Number   Status
1st Floor New Shelf FICTION/Tirado Vincent (NEW SHELF) Checked In
Subjects
Dwellings > Fiction.
Neighborhoods > Fiction.
Missing persons > Fiction.
Horror fiction.
Novels.
Genres
Horror fiction
Novels
Published
New York, NY : William Morrow 2024.
Language
English
Main Author
Vincent Tirado (author)
Edition
First edition
Physical Description
366 pages ; 24 cm
ISBN
9780063383180
9780063383197
Contents unavailable.
Review by Booklist Review

Tirado's adult debut (after the YA novel We Don't Swim Here, 2023) is a creeptastic, tongue-in-cheek combination of The Stepford Wives and Invasion of the Body Snatchers all wrapped up into a cookie-cutter-suburb nightmare. When Sol Reyes and Alice Song move to Maneless Grove, the only thing they're worried about is the homeowners association and being the sole non-Caucasian, lesbian couple. Their new surroundings are meant to be a fresh beginning for the struggling married pair. Little do they know that the gated community has a cultish agenda, and signing a piece of paper is the least of their worries. Between the exceedingly intrusive neighbors, career drama, and past traumas, Sol starts to wonder if buying a house was the best decision. Add to that microaggressions and unexplained and strange phenomena, and her fears start building up--except nobody believes her. Is it all in her head, or is she being gaslit by a truly problematic and evil group of people? Fans of small-town and slow-burn supernatural stories with a side of social commentary will appreciate Tirado's voice.

From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review

YA author Tirado (We Don't Swim Here) probes the horrors of homeownership for scares and satire in their clever if rushed adult debut. Married couple Sol Reyes and Alice Song have just closed on a new house in the gated community of Maneless Grove, Conn. As one of the only queer couples in the neighborhood and definitely the only Afro-Dominican and Korean interracial couple, the two are a little put off by the community's strict conformity, enforced by a friendly but endlessly pushy Home Owners Association. Sol, who is struggling with alcohol addiction and a plagiarism accusation at her job as a Yale professor, especially finds Maneless Grove oppressive--and soon her irritation turns into paranoia as she begins to see strange things. Oddly behaving children, shape-shifting neighbors, and parts of the house disappearing all become part of her day-to-day, with Alice unaware and unwilling to see the truth. As Sol unravels the mystery of their new community, the HOA waits in the shadows for her to slip up. Tirado mines gold from the complexities of property ownership, creating effective commentary on the role of class, sexuality, and race in suburban life. Unfortunately, the climax hastily introduces some unexpected new elements that will leave readers feeling disoriented. Still, there's plenty here to suck in millennial and Gen Z readers. Agent: Kristina Perez, Perez Literary. (Sept.)

(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Kirkus Book Review

A contemporary take on suburban horror. Marisol Reyes is a Black woman, the child of Dominican immigrants. Her wife, Alice Song, is Korean American. When they buy a home in a gated community, they quickly discover that their sexuality and their ethnicity set them apart from their neighbors. Sol has no interest in fitting in. Alice, though, feels a need to become a part of Maneless Grove. As this couple tries to navigate their differences, the homeowners association becomes a relentless presence. With each passing day, joining the HOA seems both more inevitable and more like signing a compact with the devil. This is all great stuff. Tirado is clearly riffing on horror classics likeThe Stepford Wives andRosemary's Baby, as well as the movieGet Out (which is itself a riff on the aforementioned horror classics). But the author does not deliver on the promise of this setup. Very little in the novel makes sense, and Sol is more frustrating than compelling. She's on leave from her job as a professor at Yale while her department investigates a plagiarism claim. This makes her vulnerable, for sure, as does her increasing reliance on alcohol and what looks like clinical depression. But Sol watches her house murder the only other Black woman in Maneless Grove, hears voices in her head (including the voice of that murdered Black woman), sees a vision of dead neighbors rotting in their living room, digs up her backyard to find a diary describing freaky stuff going on in her neighborhood generally and in her house specifically, and cuts live roots out of her feet without deciding that maybe it's time to get out of Maneless Grove. Also? There's some stuff about a regional cult back in the day that goes…nowhere. If this seems like a lot, it is, and none of it adds up in any sort of satisfying way. Great premise, bummer execution. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Similar Items