This is outstanding, and I love everything about it. Unfortunately my borrowed copy is due back today, but I'll definitely be getting a hard copy of my own to go on my shelves, because I know I'll want to read this again and again. (And not just because I love cicadas and was therefore tempted by the title!) There's a lot of body horror here, and there's a lot of things that are worse - the hate crime murder of one of the central characters is excruciating to read, but the appealing thing about horror is that victims can come back from the dead to exact terrible vengeance on everyone who deserves it. There's something very comforting in that. For all that horror can be a confronting genre in many other ways, it can also be deeply, profoundly interested in justice, and that's what happens here.

If it were just vengeance, though, I'd still enjoy it, but there's hope here as well, the idea that justice is in service to a better future, and that entities that appear monstrous can be monstrous and still be necessary, substantial forces for good in the world. And this book does it all against a background of modern-day migrant workers and Aztec mythology, primarily the goddess of the dead Mictecacihuatl. I freely admit that I'd never even heard of her before this, but then my knowledge of Aztec history and culture is spotty at best - something I clearly need to remedy. Oh well, more books for me!