About 10 years ago I visited a sausage processing plant as a part of my job. It was a short visit and didn’t have anything to do with their operations, but I walked out of there and I never ate meat again. 10 years of being a vegetarian was great preparation for reading this book.
This was my first time reading a book set in Brazil and my first time reading a Brazilian author, and WOW — what an introduction.
The Secret Dinner is an outstanding, completely unhinged horror thriller. Honestly, any time you see the word dinner in the title of a horror book, you know things are probably going to go off the rails, and this one absolutely does.
The story follows four young twenty-somethings who move from rural Brazil to the big city for college and remain roommates. When they fall into a financial crisis and need to figure out how to pay rent, they come up with a very questionable way to make ends meet. From there, the book just keeps escalating. As the narrative unfolds, nothing is what it seems, secrets are revealed at the perfect moments, and the stakes get higher and higher.
The pacing in this book is exquisite. It has the suspense and structure of a top-notch thriller, but with the gross, wild, “what did I just read?” energy of horror. And I mean gross in the most complimentary way possible. This is the kind of book that made me want to keep reading even when I was slightly horrified by what was happening.
And that ending? WOW. The suspense build-up was incredible. I could absolutely see this being made into a movie, and I would love to see it adapted with a Brazilian cast.
This was a huge hit in Brazil, and I’m so glad it was translated and released in the U.S. Because I had both the audio from Macmillan and the e-ARC from Celadon, I was able to tandem read with both my eyes and ears, and I binged this HARD.
This is easily one of my top 10 horror reads of the year. I think readers who enjoy authors like Nat Cassidy or T. Kingfisher — especially when horror is paired with sharp suspense and a very dark sense of humor — should absolutely check this one out.
Thank you to Macmillan Audio for the ALC and Celadon Books for the e-ARC.
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