Regional U.S.A. (RUSA) Tour Stellar Reading Challenge – Bonus – Puerto Rico
3.8/5 After I posted my last review for the World Tour Stellar Reading Challenge (SRC), I realized I still owed my Gnomies one more Starlight Book Review (SBR) for the RUSA SRC. Initially, the idea of reading something set in a U.S. Territory thrilled me. Since the Book Girls’ Guide inspired this SRC region, I also looked to them for direction on reading. Check them out by clicking here. This, of course, led me to discovering Ann Dávila Cardinal’s The Storyteller’s Death. I chose to read with my ears with the copy narrated by Marisol Ramirez that I purchased on Audible.
Learn more about these 2023 SRC by clicking here.
Click here to discover more about 2024 SRC.
Trigger Warnings (TW): Mention of suicide, racism, colorism, classism
“From International Latino Book Award-winning author Ann Dávila Cardinal comes a gorgeously written family saga about a Puerto Rican woman who finds herself gifted (or cursed?) with a strange ability.… There was always an old woman dying in the back room of her family’s house when Isla was a child…Isla Larsen Sanchez’s life begins to unravel when her father passes away. Instead of being comforted at home in New Jersey, her mother starts leaving her in Puerto Rico with her grandmother and great-aunt each summer like a piece of forgotten luggage… When Isla turns eighteen, her grandmother, a great storyteller, dies. It is then that Isla discovers she has a gift passed down through her family’s cuentistas. The tales of dead family storytellers are brought back to life, replaying themselves over and over in front of her… At first, Isla is enchanted by this connection to the Sanchez cuentistas. But when Isla has a vision of an old murder mystery, she realizes that if she can’t solve it to make the loop end, these seemingly harmless stories could cost Isla her life.”
Once I finished my library books and began reading The Storyteller’s Death, I read this book with ease. Isla passed the “Dad Test” of sympathetic character, so much so that I cringed right along with her at her mother’s various gaffes. I liked how the author showed Isla’s grieving process. Cardinal set the scenes well enough that I saw that parts took place in Puerto Rico. Yet, I found the ending too tidy. Yet, the author evoked a strong sense of both Puerto Rico and New Jersey. I recommend this to fans of magical realism.
Quotes come from book flaps/cover and are featured on color blocks.
Starry Night Elf 