About the book
Woodworm by Layla Martínez. Translated from Spanish by Sophie Hughes and Annie McDermott.Genre: Gothic
Reviewed: May 3,2025.
My rating
Four stars.Summary
An unnamed grandmother and granddaughter duo live uneasily in a house haunted by saints and angels and shades of the dead. The novel, steeped in class tension, historical wounds, and bitter hatred, opens by revealing that the granddaughter has been accused of a terrible crime - the details of which unfold as the story draws to its abrupt conclusion.
My review
I walked in and the house pounced on me. It’s always the same with this filthy pile of bricks, it leaps on whoever comes through the door and twists their guts till they can’t even breathe
I really liked this book. I listened to half of the audiobook because I was at work, and read the rest later in the week. It has a very unique voice that varies depending on who's narrating, and both narrators seem a bit at-odds with each other's stories - the granddaughter begins by saying she wants to tell us everything as it happened, and in the very next chapter, her grandmother asserts that we have been lied to. The prose is rich and super evocative and suits both the genre, story, and setting perfectly - the book is set in Spain, and the writing carries the same dry and arid atmosphere you'd expect of the Spanish countryside.
Anyone who knows me knows I adore a good haunted house tale, and this one is everything I look for. The house is caught in this very fine tension of being itself a living thing and being a product of what it holds and has beheld, an ambiguity I really appreciated. I'm also a total sucker for books which span across generations, and there's something so satisfying about how "Woodworm" went about it. My only complaint is that I wish it didn't end so abruptly, but that's only because I wish I could have read it for longer. I've seen other people genuinely crtique the ending for how quickly it came, but I personally feel it matched the tone of the novel perfectly.
Every review I read of it mentioned how it matches Jackson's "We Have Always Lived in the Castle" (another favourite of mine), and that shows in the resentment the family feels towards the townspeople. They're definitely two very different books, but the similarities are just close enough that it makes for a really fun reading experience. I also want to say that you might like this book if you like the "Mabel" podcast. There are very few similarities by way of the stories, but if you enjoy the show's dense prose and uncertain atmosphere, I think you'll like this book, too!
I shut my eyes and noticed the air in the room stiffen. Then I felt one corner of the bed sink slightly, as if someone had sat down there and the mattress had dipped under their weight. I opened my eyes right away and sat up to look around for my mother, but all I saw was a lock of black hair disappearing under the bed.
When I was little they were always catching me out with those tricks. They’d lure me in with their happy songs and I’d lift the quilt and follow them under the bed, and a few hours later I’d be back in the room with my skin covered in scratches and my clothes all torn, the fear lodged deep down inside me but with no idea why because I couldn’t remember a thing. Now I knew it wasn’t my mother who’d sat on my bed or slipped out of sight beneath it. My mother hadn’t come back to take care of me or watch over me as I slept or to stroke my hair in my dreams.
When I was little they were always catching me out with those tricks. They’d lure me in with their happy songs and I’d lift the quilt and follow them under the bed, and a few hours later I’d be back in the room with my skin covered in scratches and my clothes all torn, the fear lodged deep down inside me but with no idea why because I couldn’t remember a thing. Now I knew it wasn’t my mother who’d sat on my bed or slipped out of sight beneath it. My mother hadn’t come back to take care of me or watch over me as I slept or to stroke my hair in my dreams.