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Maya's Notebook

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Maya's Notebook

By: Isabel Allende
Narrated by: Maria Cabezas
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About this listen

The author of ‘The House of the Spirits’ returns with a gritty yet transcendent tale of teenage addiction.

The narrator and protagonist of MAYA'S NOTEBOOK is a 19 year old girl who grows up in Berkeley, California, and falls into a life of drug addiction and crime. To rescue Maya, and save her from the criminal types pursuing her, Maya's Chilean grandmother sends her to a remote island off the southern coast of Chile. Here she lives among a traditional rural people, the Chilote, who speak an older form of Spanish and have remained largely isolated from the materialism, crime, and fast-paced contemporary life which is our own. The book alternates between the narrative in the US and that on Chiloe, the island, so the two strands of the story unfold for the reader at more or less the same time.

This new book is very different from Isabel's previous historical novels: a contemporary setting; an American (of Latino descent) teenage drug addict as the protagonist and narrating voice; a realistic style of writing rather than a magical realistic one (Chiloe exists, and one can visit it). Maya's voice is modeled on that of Isabel's teenage granddaughter, a native of the Bay area (San Francisco, Berkeley).

©2013 Isabel Allende (P)2013 HarperCollins Publishers Limited Crime Crime Thrillers Genre Fiction Literary Fiction Small Town & Rural Suspense Thriller & Suspense Fiction Thriller Latin American San Francisco

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Critic reviews

Praise for Isabel Allende:
"A magical storyteller." ( Daily Mail)
"Allende's writing is so vivid we hear the sounds, see the bright birds, smell and even taste the soft fruit." ( The Times)
"A wonderful, seemingly effortless storyteller; you feel yourself sink into the folds of her narrative with an almost childlike certainty that you're going to hear a good story well told." ( Irish Independent)
"Her prose is rich and magical, her characters vivid. She mixes violence and horror, love and humour, with more than a touch of genius." (Mary Wesley)
All stars
Most relevant  
Took a while to get used to the narrators voice but the story made up for it

A very interesting story

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I fell in love with Maya, despite the fact that she took that $5, by her own admission, despicably. This is an impressively written book, beautifully read on Audible. I cannot recommend it too highly. As for my own recently completed novel, I must now revise it in the face of Isobel Allende’s smooth, detailed style with its great depth and feeling. No disappointment reading of Maya, after Clara et al in that magnificent novel, The House of the Spirits. No disappointment at all.

Compelling, moving, memorable

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it's a passionate story to follow. I will miss Maya. the narrator is very very good. I only didn't like so much the end. but it's my problem as I like different types of end.

maya will be in my heart probably forever.

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I think the story is great, but I’ll have to read this in print, as so many of the words and phrases that should have been more prominent were not.
The tough shell Of Maya would never had had such a softly spoken sighing gentle manner of speaking.

The narration let this down

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Would you recommend this audiobook to a friend? If so, why?

I would recommend it to an Isabel Allende aficionado, but if you don't like magical realism, you're not going to really like Maya's Notebook.

Who was your favorite character and why?

Maya's grandmother, she was an amzing woman

Which character – as performed by Maria Cabezas – was your favourite?

Maya herself

Was there a moment in the book that particularly moved you?

The depths to which Maya sank.

An Isabel Allende clasic

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Would you listen to Maya's Notebook again? Why?

Yes. Not only is it a very engaging story, but the narration is also extremely soothing and suits the character.

Beautifully narrated

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Almost as if the author had watched a couple of tragic teen movies and wanted to compile them into one book. It was clutching a little but I made it through to the end.

A little tragic and not in a good way.

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