Ride or Die or Kill: Brotherhood No Matter What, with House of Bone and Rain by Gabino Iglesias

 Content warnings include extreme violence, torture, drug abuse, brief homophobia. 

As I write this, Hurricane Francine is moving towards Louisiana at a frightening pace. I am nowhere near the coast, but the effects will be felt here in cooling weather and heavy rains. Even though I have family in Florida, I have never experienced the utter devastation of this weather phenomenon. The closest I can think of was the Flood of 2010 in Tennessee, where downtown Nashville was basically underwater. Even then, I was lucky to be outside of the devastation. The backdrop of crisis weather forms the setting for Gabino Iglesias’ new novel House of Bone and Rain. 

Photo by Mulholland Books

A group of five teenagers in Puerto Rico are preparing for a hurricane that is sweeping down upon them. People say that there is something evil in the winds - but the evil really lurks closer to home. Bimbo, Gabe, Xavier, Paul, and Tavo have spent a majority of their years together, prowling the poverty-stricken streets. They would do anything for each other - including the other four threatening Tavo’s father for beating him because he is gay. Bimbo’s mother is brutally murdered in front of the club where she works - and he vows revenge. 

With the backdrop of the storm, they hunt down information on who the killers were, discovering that they were the henchmen of a local drug kingpin. Bimbo seems to have lost his mind with anger and willing to pull them all into the hell he is going to create for those responsible for his mother’s death. This brotherhood, as solid as it is, stands on the idea that they would do anything for each other. Their bond isn’t one of necessity - they do genuinely care for each other, no matter what. 

Iglesias does a really good job of combining the terror, revenge, and folklore that feeds this story. Puerto Rico’s struggles with drug trafficking and poverty are the backdrop of Bimbo’s feral rampage as loss and pain. Death stalks the group of friends with the hurricane - but they aren’t the only ones affected by the storm. Babies are born wrong and families are forced to make sure they don’t survive the night. Something dark slithers into homes and makes people wrong, takes them away into the storm. There are witches and devils, but none of them are as bad as the drug lord who ordered the execution of Bimbo’s mother. 

Pushing the boundaries of love and responsibility, Iglesias shows us an unsanitized view of the bonds we form and how our surroundings impact those bonds. There are no innocents in this because no one is really given an opportunity to be one. Life on the poverty-stricken streets has the potential to make a monster out of all of us, even in defense of the people we care about. 

I do want to give a shoutout about Tavo. No one cares that he is gay, and if they do, he has the bonds of brotherhood protecting him (even if he wouldn’t choose a violent response himself). Seeing that sort of masculine bonding that ignores sexuality (and even goes so far as to protect it from the people who should be protecting their sons and daughters) made me stop for a moment and smile.

I recommend this book for people who enjoy stories with a supernatural/folklore flair and who love a revenge story which really pushes the boundaries of the love we have for our friends. 

Remember, when the storm closes in and the light flickers, I shall be there in the shadows with another book suggestion, should you need it.