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A review by book_concierge
Maya's Notebook by Isabel Allende
4.0
Audiobook performed by Maria Cabezas
On a remote island off the southern coast of Chile 19-year-old Maya Vidal uses the notebook given to her by her grandmother – Nini – to record her impressions of this simple life, reflect on her past mistakes and try to come to grips with the turns her life has taken. Through her writings we learn that as an infant she was left with her paternal grandmother and step-grandfather in Berkeley, and raised by them with considerable freedom and lots of love. The death of Popo deeply affects both Nini and Maya, and the 13-year-old spins out of control, drinking, taking drugs, and engaging in petty crimes. Eventually she gets embroiled in the seedy underworld of Las Vegas.
This is a contemporary coming-of-age novel and a significant departure for Allende who has mostly written historical fiction. Maya is frustratingly immature and so many of her decisions are so obviously wrong that the reader cannot help but anticipate the horrible outcome. Yet, we always know that she is “clean, sober and safe” because she is narrating her troubled past from a place of safety and security. This structure made me curious as to how she would get out of the various situations (and there are many including kidnapping, rape, drug overdose, etc) but also lessened the suspense. Some of the writing seemed a little mature for Maya, but on the whole I felt Allende gave her a believable voice.
The novel is peopled with a wide array of characters – colorful, bland, loyal, conniving, young, old, wise, or foolish. There are times when Maya is exploring historical elements that disrupt the flow of the main plot – her grandmother’s flight from Chile as a young widow with her young son, how her grandparents met, Manuel’s incarceration and torture, and background stories of other characters important to her story. The novel includes a few elements of magical realism – ghosts appear regularly, Maya is introduced to a coven of witches – but these are relatively minor.
Maria Cabezas does a fine job narrating this first-person tale. She has good pacing and correctly pronounces the Spanish. Her “young” voice for Maya seemed spot on. Allende is a good story-teller and Cabezas performed the work well. I was interested and engaged from beginning to end.
On a remote island off the southern coast of Chile 19-year-old Maya Vidal uses the notebook given to her by her grandmother – Nini – to record her impressions of this simple life, reflect on her past mistakes and try to come to grips with the turns her life has taken. Through her writings we learn that as an infant she was left with her paternal grandmother and step-grandfather in Berkeley, and raised by them with considerable freedom and lots of love. The death of Popo deeply affects both Nini and Maya, and the 13-year-old spins out of control, drinking, taking drugs, and engaging in petty crimes. Eventually she gets embroiled in the seedy underworld of Las Vegas.
This is a contemporary coming-of-age novel and a significant departure for Allende who has mostly written historical fiction. Maya is frustratingly immature and so many of her decisions are so obviously wrong that the reader cannot help but anticipate the horrible outcome. Yet, we always know that she is “clean, sober and safe” because she is narrating her troubled past from a place of safety and security. This structure made me curious as to how she would get out of the various situations (and there are many including kidnapping, rape, drug overdose, etc) but also lessened the suspense. Some of the writing seemed a little mature for Maya, but on the whole I felt Allende gave her a believable voice.
The novel is peopled with a wide array of characters – colorful, bland, loyal, conniving, young, old, wise, or foolish. There are times when Maya is exploring historical elements that disrupt the flow of the main plot – her grandmother’s flight from Chile as a young widow with her young son, how her grandparents met, Manuel’s incarceration and torture, and background stories of other characters important to her story. The novel includes a few elements of magical realism – ghosts appear regularly, Maya is introduced to a coven of witches – but these are relatively minor.
Maria Cabezas does a fine job narrating this first-person tale. She has good pacing and correctly pronounces the Spanish. Her “young” voice for Maya seemed spot on. Allende is a good story-teller and Cabezas performed the work well. I was interested and engaged from beginning to end.