They Bloom at Night by Trang Thanh Tran (audiobook)

 genre: speculative horror

While Noon hasn't lived in Mercy in years, it was home for her entire childhood. Devastated by a hurricane, it is now awash with a red algae bloom and people are disappearing. Does some kind of monster lurk under the bloom or is the bloom itself a monster? Alone with her mom on their shrimp trawler, they sail the coasts shrimping and keeping their eyes out for Noon's lost father and brother. Noon, though, feels something off inside and it's not just the itch on her skin. Her relationship with her mom, her otherness as the child of Vietnamese immigrants, her female body - something is brewing beyond the storm on the horizon.

Oh this is way more of a horror novel than I'd anticipated, ha ha. There is nasty, creepy stuff happening in here and I had to really stretch my brain to go with the flow, so to speak. I really liked the audio, I will say, listening to the mom's Vietnamese helped me imagine both her and Noon so much better. I appreciated the immigrant aspect and Noon's desperation to belong to herself. It's a bit mysterious, a bit upsetting, and NOT for everyone. There is a LOT of inner dialogue that sometimes get repetitious and it's on the cusp of being an adult novel but it definitely more young adult overall. But it is unique story from a unique perspective and while it's not necessarily my cup of tea, I was definitely interested enough to listen to the end.