"The Cemetery of Untold Stories" is a book about books and a story about stories.

I love the concept: Alma Cruz is a writer who inherits land in the Dominican Republic, where she's from. She decides to turn it into a cemetery for her untold stories so her characters can rest in peace. But that's not what happens!

I enjoyed this book as an audiobook. There was one narrator throughout the book, and I enjoyed their tone, pacing, and ease of switching between English and Spanish. I thought the narrator's voice fit all of the various characters.

That being said, I wish I enjoyed this book with my eyes instead of through the audiobook. This is an expansive, meandering, lyrical novel, filled with magical realism and rich descriptions. It covers a lot of ground, across space and time, borders and cultures. There are many characters, and I didn't find a clear audible distinction to help me differentiate between characters. I think I would have soaked in the book more effectively as a physical read.

This book is best enjoyed slowly. Let it stretch, expand, breathe, and wander in your mind!

Alma Cruz inherits a piece of property in the Dominican, her homeland. Among her four sisters she decides to take the the piece of property worth the least. Moving back to the Dominican, after retiring from teaching and being a prolific writer, she decides to turn this property into a cemetery for stories. she hires a Filomena to help with the groundskeeping who has her own story to tell.

Beautifully written, with both Spanish and English mixed into the story line. I enjoyed Alma and her sisters. There were multiple different stories about various families which sometimes i got lost in the names and relation. A little messy for me. I listened to the audio version and the narrator's voice went along well with the storyline. Would love to read more about Alma and her life story.

3 stars.

Thank you to RB Media and Netgalley for this ARC.

When I first heard the premise for this it sounded so interesting! A book about an author - Alma Cruz - who buries her stories, but her characters refuse to be silenced and end up telling their stories to the groundskeeper Filomena.

I listened to the audiobook but wish I would have read a physical copy either instead of or at the same time as listening. Not because it was hard to understand, but because the writing was so beautiful and lyrical I feel as though I would have underlined or highlighted quite a few things as I read.

This was one of those stories where all or most of the characters were connected somehow and I absolutely loved that aspect of it. It was almost a book made up of lots of little stories, telling us about the lives of each of the characters and what they went through.

I thoroughly enjoyed my time listening to this one and will definitely be checking out other books Julia Alvarez has written.

The only 'criticism' I have is that it ended abruptly in my opinion. I was left wanting so much more. At the end it seemed to switch into a different narrative that I didn't quite understand and then, boom, it was over. I really wish it had ended a different way and wrapped up a little more of the stories as I still had a few questions left.

Overall I loved this one, thought it was beautifully written, and I recommend it to any book lover. How can you go wrong with a book about stories??

“If a story is never told, where does it go?”

This book captivated me just with the title! Being that I am a huge bookworm, I have always been drawn to books about books! Now, throw in some magic realism and I am all in!

Quick spoiler-free synopsis….
When celebrated writer Alma Cruz inherits a small plot of land in the Dominican Republic, she turns it into a place to bury her untold stories…literally. She creates a graveyard for manuscript drafts and revisions and the characters whose lives she tried and failed to bring to life and who still haunt her. Alma wants her characters to rest in peace, but they have other ideas, and the cemetery becomes a mysterious sanctuary for their true narratives.

This book was a love letter to story telling that combines historical fiction, family, and magical realism. It also gives us an inside look at the experience of being an immigrant and how important the stories of those who came before us are and how these are the stories that continue to influence the lives of future generations!

🎧I experienced this story solely as an audiobook and although I absolutely loved the narrators voice and how she brought this story to life, I did feel that this beautiful complex story needed more variation with the narration. I felt that it was difficult to follow the different characters and timelines with just one narrator. If I could do it all over again, I would much rather read this one vs listen (or pair them together).

Thank you to the author and Netgalley for sending me this ARC in exchange for my honest review! 3.5/5 ⭐️⭐️⭐️💫 or me!

Follow me on Instagram @i.am.book.a.licious for more reviews like this!

Julia Alvarez has written a new writer (Alma Cruz) into the world grown wearied of writing, and ready to be done with its detritus. Alma herds her cats (metaphorical), bags them and heads to the Dominican Republic to bury them in inherited land she will "cemetery" and ensure they can Rest In Peace. Those cats, of course, are not cats, they are Untold - Unfinished Stories that she wants to finally put to rest. They are having none of it. You can't keep a good story buried.

As for me, I wish she'd repent of her " Este cuento se ha acabado. ", and give us the stories after all. I long for more of Bienvenida, Doc Cruz and even Filomena, and find myself thinking of them, and other "cemeteries" we keep of our own stories, untold and unfinished. All are conversations worth revisiting and are begging for revisions that bring them up for air and sunshine.

A read that rearranges thinking about stories, if you let it.

*A sincere thank you to Julia Alvarez, Algonquin Books, RB Media and NetGalley for an ARC to read and independently review.* #TheCemeteryofUntoldStories #NetGalley

With everything that I am, I am struggling to verbalize how I feel about this novel. I have spent the entirety of two days mentally constructing this review. Through writing this, I am hopeful that I will gain the mental clarity that as of yet has escaped me. As a caution to you in ALL CAPS, I cannot discuss/review this novel without SPOILERS. You have been warned.

But first, I want to address the narration done by Alma Cruz. Her delivery was perfect. She was able to deliver both the cheekiness and the gravitas directed by the narrative. She reminds me of Shelly Frasier in her reading of Mary Roach’s Stiff. As a criticism, not to Alma, but to the composition in general, there was a lot of this book dedicated to the male perspective/voice. It would have been nice to have a male and female narrator.

Onto the words!
Did the synopsis hook me and reel me in like a prized bass? You betcha.
• The premise of the novel is one that immediately drew my attention. In its simplest form, the writer creates a cemetery for the stories that she never told, or was unable to tell, for various reasons. Then, voices begin to rise from those graves like the tendrils of an auditory specter. It reminded me of A.J. Hackwith’s Library of the Unwritten. In that novel, there is a library in hell where unfinished stories reside, and their characters consistently try to escape their prison (I’ll revisit this concept later).
• The synopsis promised magical realism: Delivered
• The synopsis promised historical fiction: Delivered.
• The synopsis promised an “emotional novel”: Delivered. It did not, however, promise that emotion would be positive.
Is this novel beautifully written? Yes.
Does this novel contain resonating wisdom? Absolutely.
• Looking over my notes, I wrote down ten memorable quotations. And I listened to the audiobook, so you can imagine the work that it took to go back, relisten to all of the parts I had tagged, and then transcribe my favorite quotations to the best of my ability into my reading journal. My favorite being: “Listening to all of these stories has opened up so many windows in Filomena’s life… so much sadness, so much wonder, so much joy. Her heart is messy with feelings, her mind with possibilities… Now, there is room in her heart for everyone, or nearly everyone.”
• Filomena was my favorite character. She starts the novel illiterate and throughout the novel, finds the power of her own voice, her own stories, and comes to know the unify factor of listen to other’s stories. The latter concept is a belief that deeply ingrained with everything I know about humanity: there can be no empathy for myself or others without first acknowledging and holding dear the small stories that mold, shape, and create a person. The metaphor used by Alvarez of a person’s stories being small representative nations in the continent of who they actually are is beautiful and brilliant. Filomena and Alma’s ability to recognize this was a great triumph.

Did this story evoke an emotional reaction? It did.

• SADNESS. And maybe that is my true internal conflict. I struggle to enjoy, even in its brilliance, novels that make me sad. I needed one happy ending – arguably, even with Filomena and Alma’s realization, there was not one. Alma dies (I guess) and Filomena fades off into the cacophony of different negative experiences and voices that comprises the last chapter. I had to listen to it twice. It was confusing.
• This novel reads like Love Actually but every interconnected story is a different version of Alan Rickman and Emma Thompsons’ experience only vacillating between New York and the Dominican Republic. Don’t mind me, I’ll just be crying in the corner listened to Joni Mitchell and wondering if any man in the DR is capable of faithfulness as there was an overwhelming negative representation of Domincan men in that aspect.

Did this novel make me want to dust off ye old literary analysis skills? Yup. Look away if this is of no interest to you and/or you don’t want a SPOILER about the end.

• Alfa Calenda. To not end up like her friend who went insane from her untold story, she buries her stories, but then Alma SPOILER: goes insane. Whereas Alfa Calenda was a refuge for her father, it is Alma’s damnation. Was it the sins of the father being revisited upon the child? That tracks… Unfortunately, I did not bookmark the part that discussed the creation of Alfa Calenda where (I’m trying to remember) a broken vase can tell you it’s story, but when, in her steady decline, Alma opens the drawer for a spoon and they tell of their journey through the mines, she has officially stepped into that earlier description of Alpha Calenda. I remember being introduced to the concept of Alfa Calenda and marveling at the creativity, but then put into practice, the last thing Alma needed was the spoons talking to her. I was wondering about the connection of the writer at the beginning and the Alma at the end. Were they both destined to go mad in some way? One by obsessing over the one story she never told and the other, in an attempt to rid herself of her untold stories, ends up hearing all of the stories – her filtering system gone entirely.
• Returning to the earlier comparison with The Library of the Unwritten, I’m very sure that if the cemetery is not Hell ruled over by El Baron Del Cementario, it is purgatory.

Thank you so much to NetGalley and Algonquin Book for an advanced copy of this audiobook! I had to give this four stars. I did not love the content, but I loved the writing. Mental Clarity: Achieved

I really tried so hard to DNF this book and actually like it… I genuinely wanted to love this book!

The idea of it is SO intriguing: the author hides their untold stories, but the characters come to life and tell their stories through a stream-of-consciousness writing style.

After reading many positive reviews about this novel, I was eager to dive into it myself. However, I must admit that I struggled to connect with the story. Despite having high expectations, I found myself feeling disengaged and confused. Even after listening to the same chapter multiple times, I was unable to grasp the plot or where it was heading. I had hoped that the confusion would clear up as I continued reading, but unfortunately, this was not the case. Although I appreciated the writing style, I believe that my experience may have been better if I had read a physical or ebook version. Additionally, I found the narrator not so good at differentiating different voices and it felt a little bland and boring (it was particularly tough to keep track of the different sideline storylines).

Also I am not a Spanish speaker and I think that some of the Spanish words/phrases in the book were not always easy to translate immediately and maybe this can have contributed leaving gaps in my understanding of some parts of the story.

I think that this book wasn't for me, to quote the book; "All stories are good stories if you find the right listener".

Maybe I will give it another try later on but I feel like it’s not going to happen in the near future.

Thank you to the author and NetGalley for providing me the opportunity to listen to the audiobook in exchange for a honest review.

“how to exorcise a story that had never been told”
this is a book for people who need to write in order to exist

it is about immigrant experience, family hood and how the lives of our ancestors influence on our own lives, aka intergenerational transmission

the story is from different perspectives (past/present) with four main threads that converge and diverge within the story; julia alvarez bring all those threads together in a coherent and smoothly way

overall I really enjoyed this book, I would say that perhaps the audiobook is not the best way to consume this story, I recommend the physical book (even if the audio is great)

thank you netgalley for the copy

Thank you Algonquin and RB Media for my free ARC of The Cemetery of Untold Stories by Julia Alvarez — available now!

Read this if you:
💃 enjoy stories that feature strong, sometimes stubborn women
🔀 don't mind a bit of a meandering tale
🇩🇴 want to learn a bit about the history of the Dominican Republic

Alma inherits a less-than-desirable plot of land in her original homeland and decides to put it to good use: she'll make it a graveyard for her unfinished stories so they don't drive her mad with their unfinished-ness. Locals are drawn to the mysterious space, and the stories decide they'd rather not remain untold, so they start whispering to those who want to listen.

“All stories are good if you find the right listener.”

Spoiler alert: I was not quite the right listener this time. I really loved the setup for this tale — a cemetery for stories?! Epic. Unfortunately, the execution fell a little flat for me, as I had trouble keeping straight the identities of the characters, their stories, and their timelines. I may try to read this one again another time, because I really enjoyed Bienvenida and all the Dominican history that was imparted. Give this one a try and let me know you it fares for you.

⭐️⭐️⭐️

This was a 'can't put down' book for me - I listened at 2x speed, not so that I could hurry up and get through it, as if it was a chore, but because I needed to know what happened and how the untold stories would finish (or if they would).

The writing is impeccable and, I loved the weaving in of Spanish words from time to time and think that it was done so well. There's enough context clues given that non-Spanish speaking readers can make out the meaning.

As much as I was intrigued by Alma's unnamed writer friend at the beginning, by the end I wasn't even thinking of her and I'm not sure if that was a detriment or benefit to the story. The beginning spends plenty of time making her seem important, but then the whole story pivots its focus to Alma and her stories.

I loved the way that the untold stories weave together by the end, like different colored threads forming a tapestry.

3.5/5

An ode to the stories that haunt us, and the ways in which they come together.
This was lyrical, and intricate, yet gentle in its storytelling. This is a sweeping character study that weaves together fiction and (its characters') reality in a tapestry of narratives that become interwoven.

This book has popped up on some anticipated release lists, and I found the promised magical realism intriguing. Unfortunately I just couldn’t sink my teeth into the plot or the characters. I felt like this book content did not match up with the jacket blurb, and I often found myself zoning out while listening to the audiobook. I’m not sure if this just wasn’t my genre or if I just wasn’t in the mood for infidelity, murder, and interwoven stories.

🎧THE CEMETERY OF UNTOLD STORIES by Julia Alvarez is narrated perfectly by Alma Cuervo and came out April 2nd!

This was quite a different kind of story, which I loved. It was layered and beautifully written while giving intriguing characters that slowly revealed themselves. When I began to read about Alma and her plot of land in the Dominican Republic that she makes into a Cemetery for Stories, I didn't know if it would connect. When Filomena comes to tend the "graves" and begins to hear the stories, I was, like her, engaged completely.

The way this novel unfolds is enchanting and lovely, while also sharing the more complex family issues. I did get a tiny bit confused a time or two until I understood who was speaking, but once I got the characters, it went along smoothly. I enjoyed listening to the narration as it carried me along the stories and how it all came together felt revelatory.

I definitely recommend this novel to fans of family dramas with just enough whimsy to accept the premise of stories refusing to be silent. It is worth the dip into magical realism to hear them!

Thank you @netgalley & @recordedbooks for this gorgeous audiobook and letting me share about it.

I was really hoping to enjoy this book. It seemed like a really great concept but did not turn out to be what I expected based on the synopsis. There were too many different plots that it made it hard to keep up. I'm still confused as to what happened and what was going on in parts of the book. There were so many characters and stories that I forgot half of their names. I think this could book could be more enjoyable for those who know how to speak Spanish. Or maybe if I had read the physical or ebook instead of the audio. There were MANY Spanish words and phrases that were given no explanation. That caused some conversations and sentences to be completely lost to me. If I were reading instead of listening, I would have looked up the Spanish words to better understand the story. I would probably give this 2 stars, but because I feel like this could be more enjoyable for someone who knows Spanish or can look up the translations, I'm going to give it 3 stars.

In the Cemetery of Untold Stories by Julia Alvarez, the main character, Alma is a celebrated author struggling with her many unfinished manuscripts. After the death of their parents, Alma and her sisters inherit land in the Dominican Republic and Alma negotiates with her sisters for a specific plot of land to create her cemetery of untold stories. Rejected manuscripts, incomplete plots, unfinished stories, and characters whose stories will never be told; the stories she will not write. All are buried here because Alma is haunted by these unfinished stories. An author friend of Alma’s dies trying to finish a novel, and Alma believes it was this unfinished story that killed her friend. Alma wants to put her untold stories and characters to rest. Alma hires Filomena to be the caretaker for her cemetery. Filomena loves the cemetery and listening to the character’s stories. This book is all about the stories and untold stories. Everyone wants their story to be told - in the right way. Even the security system asks the visitors to tell a story. I love the premise of the book and it is an interesting read. All the different points of view add depth, dimension and, unfortunately, some confusion. 3.75 stars.

Thank you @NetGalley and RB Media for my copy of #thecemetaryofuntoldstories

really enjoyed the audio. I’m usually a big fan of magical realism and this was exactly that. I love the idea of characters coming to life and making sure their story gets told. (Before they get buried!) I felt so motivated to write after reading this and to believe that the stories I have in my mind deserve to be told. I loved how we get other people’s stories too it was just so wonderful and Julia Alvarez is a incredible author.

First off, the writing is beautiful and I really wish I had more positive feedback in regards to the rest of the book. I had the audio version of this book and unfortunately it was tough to stay interested. The narrator did a less than average job of differentiating different voices and it felt a little bland. It was tough to keep track of the different storylines I found it very confusing. There is also a scene where a child is brutally stabbed, as well as a dog and well it was a bit disturbing for me at that point and difficult to continue. Thanks to the author, Algonquin Books, and NetGalley for providing an ARC of The Cemetery of Untold Stories for review. The opinions expressed in this review are entirely my own.

This was such a beautifully written book. It hits on a variety of themes and topics so I feel that it would resonate with many different audiences. The narrator was also did a wonderful job.

Thanks NetGalley and RB Media for the opportunity to listen to and review this audiobook.

Wow. All of us who love to read have read some of the books in the increasingly popular world of meta stories - how can we resist these tributes to what we love so much? I've read a bunch of them, and am a fan of the genre in general, which means I'm much more forgiving of the repetitive themes they tend to share. This one checks all the usual boxes - stories are important both to the teller and the listener, sharing stories keeps them alive, stories connect us to our cultures, etc. So if you're into the genre in general, you'll get everything you're looking for here.

But this one has an extra wrinkle that rarely makes it out of the scifi/fantasy twists on the concept - what about the stories whose subjects don't want them to be told? Not necessarily in the dramatic context of covering up a crime or escaping a curse - but just because some people value their privacy and prefer to keep the telling of their stories in their own hands, since the telling of a story inevitably changes it?

It will come as no shock that the various storytellers (and listeners) have unexpected connections that unfold over the course of the book - but what is more novel (pun intended) is that the book never becomes a quest to drag all secrets out into the open at any cost. Some things are revealed, others are lost to history - and both outcomes are equally valid. This isn't Coco where your relatives who had the bad luck to die before photography are irrevocably damned - for these stories, their existence is not dependent upon discovery.

Thank you to NetGalley for the ARC!

I loved the concept of this book and the intricate story telling by the author. Unfortunately, I had a really hard time following the audiobook. The story line seemed to jump around and the characters often changed suddenly. I had a hard time following who was speaking and whether we were in the past or present. I love her use of Spanish to make the book authentic, but I do not speak Spanish and did not always glean the meaning of a sentence when a translation was not offered.

Thank you to NetGalley and RB Media | Recorded Books for my advance copy in exchange for my honest feedback.