Jawbone

Details:

• author: Mónica Ojeda 
  
• full title: Jawbone
  
• narrator: Victoria Villarreal
  
• genre: literary fiction, horror
  
• topics: #adolescence, #surreal, #mothers, #daughters, #lgbt
  
• publisher: Tantor Audio
  
• publish date: 31 Jan 2023
  
• timing: 9:11:00
  
  

My Rating of the Audiobook:

• content: 💙💙💙💙
• narration: 💙💙💙💙💙

 

Lambda Literary Award Nominee for Lesbian Fiction (2023)
National Book Award Finalist for Translated Literature (2022)

Goodreads

Excerpt from the Book:

If she had to be honest during her job interview, Clara López Valverde would find herself in the awkward position of having to admit that she was a language and literature teacher without any calling whatsoever to teach. It wasn’t that she was bad at her job, at least not much worse than those who showed a true enthusiasm for education, who plunged into long diatribes in the teachers’ lounges or hallways on meaningful learning, pedagogical methodologies, cognitivism, and all the other problems, but she was missing a particular inclination—what others called “passion,” for lack of a better word—for what went on in a room full of adolescents. Her mother, dead for five years but more alive than ever in her thoughts—even more so when she was nervous and sweaty and picked at the delicate skin between the fingers of her left hand—had warned her that to teach, you had to believe in yourself; that education was much like religion in that the teacher is the priest, the minister, the pastor, and that with no faith, there is no meaning, and with no meaning, there’s nothing worth reading—her mother liked being sententious and rhyming, because the sound of repetition, especially of consonant rhyme, made her feel like a medium through which a sort of immortal, classical wisdom spoke

My Thoughts:

Fernanda and Annelise are best friends. They attend a private school called Delta Bilingual Academy. The story revolves around them and their language and literature teacher, Miss Clara, who is obsessed with her dead mother.

Ojeda explores the female figure, adolescence, and various dysfunctional relationships, especially between mother-daughter. Eeriness often emerges from here.

This novel is quite different. Maybe the genre would be literary horror. It’s not a true horror, but it’s dark and unsettling. There’s a lot of weird stuff in it, bits you didn’t want to read. As I mentioned, Jawbone is a peculiar and disturbing, sometimes even surreal and grotesque novel.

About the Author:

Mónica Ojeda Franco is an Ecuadorian writer. She obtained her bachelor's degree from the Universidad Católica de Santiago de Guayaquil, followed by a master's degree from the Universidad Pompeu Fabra de Barcelona. She is currently working on her doctorate in Madrid.