[Book Review] Coyote Songs by Gabino Iglesias

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Coyote Songs by Gabino Iglesias is a gut-wrenching and heavy mosaic novel that focuses on the lives of various characters as they all go through tragic events.

Content Warnings: This one is very heavy. If you are worried about any specific triggers, feel free to message me! I would be happy to chat. If you are easily triggered by things, I would definitely caution you here. However, the things that could be triggering are here for a reason.

Let’s dive in!

My Thoughts on Coyote Songs by Gabino Iglesias

In this novel, we have a boy who witnessed his fathers sudden death, a mother having a really hard time with something growing inside her, a coyote struggling to do what’s right, a man just out of jail that doesn’t want to go back, an artist with intrusive thoughts that just wants to be remembered, and a woman who goes through something truly horrific who is set on revenge.

On the first pass through with these characters, I was worried I was going to get their storylines confused because there were so many of them and I don’t have much experience with mosaic novels. But that was absolutely not the case here. Each of these stories are all so powerful; they are sure to stick with you.

While each of these storylines shared a thread that tied them all together, I was also interested to see that each followed a different horror theme; there’s coming of age horror, body horror, real world horror, violent horror, extreme horror, and paranormal horror. The range here was incredible.

I don’t want to spoil anything as this is definitely a book to just dive into, but I do have one more note before moving on to my favorite passages. I had to put this book down numerous times because of how tragic some of the scenes are. What makes this one even more of a gut-punch is knowing that a lot of this stuff really happens and it’s not something that we can all just close our eyes to. It’s happening every day. We need to do better.

My Favorite Passages from Coyote Songs

Those stories, at least the parts he could understand, had fed the boy’s imagination like gasoline thrown into a raging campfire.

Facts are harder to swallow than rocks, but just as solid.

If society was going to push him into the shadows, he was going to become a shark in those shadows. 

Confidence was a fragile thing dangling over a sea of crushing teeth by thread of shadow tied to a beam of hope.

When fury diminishes, the space it used to occupy is filled by sorrow or dissatisfaction, or it remains empty, like an abandoned house ready to be invaded by vermin. 

My Final Thoughts on Coyote Songs

While there are many things that may be triggering in this content, that was the point. This is a very dark and difficult read. This will likely make you very uncomfortable, but it’s important to sit in that discomfort to understand why novels like this are so important to get on everyone’s radar.

Go pick this one up today.

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For more content from Mr. Iglesias, check out this episode of the Dead Headspace podcast:

Thanks for reading!