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Maya's Notebook cover art

Maya's Notebook

By: Isabel Allende
Narrated by: Maria Cabezas
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Summary

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 audiobook alternates between the narrative in the United States and that on Chiloe, the island, so the two strands of the story unfold for the listener at more or less the same time.

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

©2013 Isabel Allende (P)2013 HarperCollins Publishers Limited

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)

What listeners say about Maya's Notebook

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  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars

An Isabel Allende clasic

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.

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2 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars

A very interesting story

Took a while to get used to the narrators voice but the story made up for it

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1 person found this helpful

  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
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    2 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    4 out of 5 stars

The narration let this down

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.

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

Compelling, moving, memorable

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.

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  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars
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    3 out of 5 stars

Beautifully narrated

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.

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

maya will be in my heart probably forever.

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.

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  • Overall
    2 out of 5 stars
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    3 out of 5 stars
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    2 out of 5 stars

A little tragic and not in a good way.

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.

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