You Should Have Been Nicer to my Mom by Vincent Tirado

I’m going to be upfront and say that the only reason I put my name in for an Advanced Reader Copy of this was purely on the fact the name Made me laugh. Thanks to William Morrow publishing and NetGalley, I was able to read this for an honest review.

Because I skimmed the book blurb and picked this because of the funny title, I didn’t have to many expectations going into this. The expectations I did have going in I kind based on the cover which was completely my mistake. I thought this was going to be a demonic house ghost story like Amittyville. I also realized I have not read a lot of gothic Horror novels so I didn’t expect the slow burn to this book.

This book is about the death of the head of the Abreu family, Papi Ramon. Papi Ramon’s final wishes require his remaining family to meet at his home for a reading of the will. As everyone arrives, the mother of all storms hits trapping this family in the house. The will is read and all it says is “one of you is el bacá, the demon that I made a deal with. Get rid of them or you will be damned.” Obviously everyone thinks it is a joke and refuses to believe it, but the youngest member and family outcast, Xiomara, feels there is more to this than a joke and has to figure out which person is the demon before it’s too late. Not only is Xiomara battling a demon, the weather, and her estranged family but time its self.

Here is what I liked about this book. I really liked Tirado’s writing style and his character development. Tirado writes his characters so well that even when I hated a character, I just loved to hate them. Let me tell you, none of this family likes each other so it made for some interesting interactions. The ending was very fast paced and difficult to put down. I may have struggled to get into this book but once things started to get going in the story, I was finding any excuse to pick this up I could.

I guess most of the issues I had with this book were my own personal issues and I will not fault the author at all. Since I have not read a lot of Gothic horror, I was not prepared for how slow the story was going to move before it got intense. Had I been more familiar with the Gothic sub-genre of horror I might have enjoyed this more.

Since my issues were my own I will highly recommend this to anyone looking for some serious family drama and secrets getting out, or a good scavenger hunt story. This book will be released on March 10, 2026 and you can pre-order it now. 🥃🥃🥃 is my review just because I enjoyed it but still had my own disappointments. I hope you do check it out and would love to hear your thoughts.