Jawbone

By Mónica Ojeda

"Was desire something like being possessed by a nightmare?" Fernanda and Annelise are so close they are practically sisters: a double image, inseparable. So how does Fernanda end up bound on the floor of a deserted cabin, held hostage by one of her teachers and estranged from Annelise? When Fernanda, Annelise, and their friends from the Delta Bilingual Academy convene after school, Annelise leads them in thrilling but increasingly dangerous rituals to a rhinestoned, Dior-scented, drag-queen god of her own invention. Even more perilous is the secret Annelise and Fernanda share, rooted in a dare in which violence meets love. Meanwhile, their literature teacher Miss Clara, who is obsessed with imitating her dead mother, struggles to preserve her deteriorating sanity. Each day she edges nearer to a total break with reality. Interweaving pop culture references and horror concepts drawn from from Herman Melville, H. P. Lovecraft, and anonymous "creepypastas," Jawbone is an ominous, multivocal novel that explores the terror inherent in the pure potentiality of adolescence and the fine line between desire and fear.

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Published Feb 8, 2022

272 pages

Average rating: 6.36

59 RATINGS

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Federal Way Book Club

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Community Reviews

E_reader8
I wanted to like this but I just couldn't get into it. I made it to chapter 7 and I just couldn't do it anymore. Id say maybe I need to read in Spanish but I feel that would pull me in even less. My TBR is too long to read a book that isn't pulling me in.
Haley Ruiz
2/10 stars
DNF, but would like to try again..
gigireadshorror
4/10 stars
I don't know what this was, honestly. Maybe I need to revisit it in Spanish, maybe it'll make more sense to me in the way it was originally written.
abbykolo
9/10 stars
A light-hearted, jovial story perfect for Mother's Day. Not. This book was hard to read at points, for different reasons. At first it was getting used to Ojeda's prose, then it was the content. This book delivers horror in a way I've never experienced before and I think that the concepts about the White God, fear, and motherhood, are all intensely important to consider. That being said, this book isn't for everyone. I glanced at other reviews and I know exactly how off-putting this book is, but it's supposed to be that way. The point is to be borderline unreadable, eerie, and hysterical. It understands womanhood and puberty in a way that I've never seen described before, and is deeply graphic in all of its imaginings. Go along for the ride if you have a spare moment.

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