Julia Alvarez's writing is as wondrous as a cemetery for untold stories--I could easily read this book three more times and never stop finding new moments of brilliance.

Everything and everyone has a story, but some stories remain untold. This is why Alma Cruz, an acclaimed writer and instructor, buries her unfinished stories, literally, in Julia Alvarez’s novel, “The Cemetery of Untold Stories”. Alma, the creator of said cemetery, relocates from Vermont to the Dominican Republic when she inherits a less than desirable property. It is on this property where she buries her unfinished manuscripts including an unfinished piece about Bienvenidas Trujillo, the ex-wife of the cruel Dominican dictator, as well as a biography about Alma’s father, Dr. Manuel Cruz. Alma commissions an artist to create sculptures and other pieces to help memorialize these “unfinished” works and essentially creates a graveyard that acknowledges the untold stories and piques the curiosity of the locals. At the gates entrance, visitors press the intercom button and hear, “Tell me a story.” This story, if good enough, serves as the entry fee to the cemetery. This is how we meet lovable Filomena because although illiterate she has a story that has been ignored. As the novel develops, soon the reader knows these stories since the groundskeeper, Filomena, is able to hear the stories being told. Julia Alvarez is masterful at weaving together Alma’s personal story, her unfinished manuscript, Filomena’s story, and Dominican history while employing elements of magical realism.

Alvarez examines themes of what it means to be a sister and child. She, of course, shows the complexity of being Dominican and how the country is haunted by Trujillo’s tyrannical reign. It is a very “meta” novel, a story about the art of storytelling. I enjoyed it immensely and would recommend it to my students in Advanced Placement courses as well as to anyone who is a Julia Alvarez fan. Her work just stays with you.

Thank you to Julia Alvarez, Algonquin Books, and NetGalley for the ARC.

Thank you to #NetGalley and Algonquin Books for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.
I often enjoy a book with amazing storytelling and a hint of magical realism. Unfortunately, I had a difficult time connecting to this seemingly well crafted novel. It might have been the wrong book and wrong time situation, However, if you enjoy rich storytelling and magical realism I would recommend you give it a try

A little more than five years ago, my husband and I went to hear Julia Alvarez speak. At that time, I had a couple of her books on my to-be-read list, but hadn't actually read anything she'd written. I was so impressed with her that I knew I needed to rectify that. This is now my third of her books and I've several things to be true of her books:
The themes of family (especially sisters), the immigrant experience, home, and storytelling will appear.
The writing will be beautiful.
The book will make me really think and I'm bound to learn from it.
It's possible that I may feel like I'm in over my head.
This book was no exception. I'll admit to wondering, in the beginning, if this book might be more cerebral than what I was up to when I began reading. But I also knew that I wanted to see how it would play out so I continued reading and Alvarez began pulling me in, even when it became apparent that magical elements were going to be involved (and you all know how tricky that it for me!).

For a bit I felt pulled about, from one person's story to another's, from Alma's story to Filomena's story. Gradually they became one and the need for that background for each of them became apparent as the stories told by those buried characters begin to emerge.

Manuel Cruz is Alma's father, a man who long ago spoke of a of mysterious place, a place his daughters mocked him about. Then one day he stopped speaking of it and, as he slipped into dementia, he stopped telling his girls anything about his past.

Bienvenida is based on the real wife of Rafael Trujillo. Her she is a woman who gets swept up in the make-believe world Trujillo creates in wooing her and remains blind to the person he really is until she is forced to leave the country so that he can marry a new woman who can give him children.

Filomena is a woman who grew up in the slums, whose mother abandoned her as a child and whose father was abusive. She and her sister, Perla, get tricked into coming into the city and working as maids for a wealthy family. When Perla becomes pregnant by the family's son, they are forced to marry. When he lands in trouble for going against Trujillo, the young family is sent to New York City and Filomena is deprived of the sister she's become estranged from and her beloved nephew.

As Filomena listens to the stories in the cemetery, we begin to see how Alma's father's, Bienvenida's, and, eventually, Filomena's mother's stories are intertwined.

As the book moved between the stories told by the characters in the cemetery and the real lives of Alma and Filomena, I never found myself confused or trying to race through one story to get to the next. For me, everything was laid out and unfolded perfectly. I grew to care deeply about these characters, even those who were more deeply flawed. In just 256 pages, Alvarez took me from doubting this book to wishing it were longer, not because it didn't feel complete; but because I wanted to hear more of the stories.

The first book I ever read as a part of a book club was written by Julia Alvarez and I will be continuously loyal ever since! Alma Cruz, the celebrated writer at the heart of The Cemetery of Untold Stories, doesn’t want to end up like her friend, a novelist who fought so long and hard to finish a book that it threatened her sanity. So when Alma inherits a small plot of land in the Dominican Republic, her homeland, she has the beautiful idea of turning it into a place to bury her untold stories—literally.

Julia Alvarez was one of my favorite authors in high school. I don't know why I stopped reading her books, it's definitely an oversight.

This is a story (stories) within a story, almost three books in one. I really enjoyed the storytelling structure of the book and the connections between characters.

The book deals with the Dominican Republic's violent past as well as the diaspora in the United States. The writing is beautiful. Alma Cuervo does an excellent job with the narration.

Ultimately, I really struggled to get through Julia Alvarez's THE CEMETERY OF UNTOLD STORIES (something about the voice), but in no way do I think that this detracts from the thematic and literary value of the text. It just wasn't for me.

Thank you NetGalley and Algonquin Books for this digital ARC in exchange for my honest review.

I hate to say that despite owning a couple of Julia Alvarez books, this is the first one I’ve read.

“Beautiful” doesn’t begin to describe this novel. The narrator, Alma Cuervo, did a phenomenal job at keeping the pace and tone just right. I was provided access to a digital ARC, but by the time I read this novel, it was already published, and an audiobook was available. I utilized both formats.

Alma Cruz is a writer, and she has a lot of stories that she hasn’t felt were complete. At the time of her retirement, she decides to create a cemetery in Dominican Republic for all of her stories that were left untold. Two particular stories shine, and the reader experiences them primarily through the eyes of Alma’s groundskeeper, Filomena.

Told from multiple POV and going back and forth in time, we follow all of the untold stories of the characters in Alma’s life. The reader gets to see how every story (and everybody) is connected.

Great storytelling in its finest form. However, if it wasn’t for the audiobook, I would have had a hard time reading the text because there are no distinctions as to who is speaking. Usually, I don’t have a problem with this, but the narration really helps to bring the story to life.

This novel dives into 1) what it means to have a story and choose whether or not to share it with the world, and 2) whose responsibility or duty is it to share a story - especially when it is not ours to tell.

I recommend this book, and if you can get your hands on the audiobook, even better. I will definitely read more Julia Alvarez books.


TW: sexual assault, loss of a pregnancy, infidelity, death of a child

This is a lovely blend of family saga, historical fiction, magical realism, and literary fiction. It has some light mysteries thrown in as well. It takes a while to get the hang of the narrative, but it's worth the wait.

The cover art is lovely.

My favorite piece is the groundskeeper listening for the stories from the people whose notes are buried at each statue.

Thank you NetGalley for the ARC. I bought a copy for my library and shared it with two of our reading groups.

I really enjoyed the premise of this book, and I think that the themes of storytelling, what constitutes a story, and who gets to tell a story were fascinating to trace throughout the novel.
Of all the characters and their compelling stories, I thought that Filomena and Bienvenida Inocencia really elevated this story. They were both such nuanced characters with my favorite stories, despite the fact that neither particularly thought their story needed to be told.
I thought that the decision to have Pepito tell Bienvenida’s story at the end, against Alma and Bienvenida’s will, was an effective point to drive home the lives that stories take on outside of their subjects.
Note: I found quite a few similarities between this book and Alvarez’s ¡Yo!, which I thought was kind of odd.

This story was very unique and I always love Julia Alvarez's writing. She has mastered her prose and this story was slow to start but very interesting nonetheless.

I received this book for free for an honest review from netgalley. Thank you for the opportunity

I loved every second!

I loved this well-written, beautifully narrated story of intertwining histories. Alvarez writes her characters with so much depth, even the characters we don't spend much time with feel like they are written in 3D. I really enjoyed the concept of putting our own unresolved stories to rest and the magic realism in the book really worked for me.

CEMETERY OF UNTOLD STORIES
Julia Alvarez

With a blend of family drama, magical realism, a little history, and a lot of good writing, Julia Alvarez beguiles us with the tale of Alma, an end-of-career writer of Dominican descent much like herself. It is a story of “…What happens when a writer leaves the gated community of her established craft and instead goes feral.”As successful as she has been, Alma has a sizable collection of unfinished stories, and the worries about what willl happen to the characters therein. When she inherits a piece of property in a rundown neighborhood in the Dominican Republic, she makes an unusual decision.

She will bury them.

THE CEMETERY OF UNTOLD STORIES features plots with a sculpture commemorating each unfinished story. Visitors are admitted only if they tell one of their stories at the gate. Filomena, an illiterate domestic who lives in the neighborhood, becomes fascinated with the cemetery, and visits regularly, gaining entrance with hers and others’ stories. Soon, Alma hires Filomena to be caretaker.

At that point, the narrative voice leaves Alma, and is taken over by Filomena’s story, as well as two voices who refuse to stay buried—Manuel Cruz, Alma’s “papi,” and Bienvenida, the tragic first wife of Rafael Trujillo, the brutal dictator who ruled the Republic for many years. Filomena can hear their plaintive tales, and faithfully listens to them. Their stories unfold along with her family saga, her sister and nephew having emigrated to Nueva York years ago. Manuel escaped to New York to avoid persecution for resistance to Trujillo’s regime. He reveals to Filomena what he kept silent about so many years to his family, a taciturn man unknown to them. Bienvenida found herself erased from history by her successor, and denied by her husband. With these characters, Alvarez does what Alma could not—she finishes their stories. In doing so, she also gives voice to a wide swath of experience rarely heard, that of those past and present in the DR.

Alvarez brings her best to what she hints might be her last book . Eloquent at times, a master of blending colloquialisms and Spanish phrases seamlessly into the narrative, she keeps us engaged as she finishes these stories with a satisfying denouement. If this is indeed her last book, it is a worthy addition to her body of work.

I like this book, but didn't love it. Based on the title and cover I think I expected for fantasy and immersive storytelling. That may be down to my own incorrect assumptions though. It was a fantastical story in many ways. It was just a little more slow moving than I would prefer. Some of the characters' stories were more engaging than others and the jumps back in forth in POV sometimes made it hard to stay with the overarching story of the book. I am glad I read it, but it didn't feel like a book I would return to again.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for an eARC.

In The Cemetery of Untold Stories, Alvarez examines the importance of storytelling and how it can make people feel seen, help them cope, and set them free. The story follows Alma Cruz, a writer who inherits a piece of undesirable land in the Dominican Republic that she converts into a cemetery for her drafted stories that she couldn't bring herself to complete. She also crosses paths with a local woman, Filomena, who has a compelling story of her own and becomes a caretaker for this cemetery. As she works at her tasks, she begins to hear voices and learns of the stories that Alma was unable to finish, including that of her late father and an ex-wife of dictator Rafael Trujillo.

There are many intriguing stories behind the characters Alvarez highlights in this story but it did move a bit slowly for me. I did enjoy the reading experience but I wasn't particularly wowed by the ending of the novel, where it felt a bit open-ended. That was likely on purpose, as a big theme is our stories continuing on after we are gone, but I don't feel it was compelling enough that I felt it paid off in the end.

The Cemetery of Untold Stories was a really interesting and exciting story. Alvarez is a terrific writer and I kept wanting to pick this up.

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

Does it stay with the author? Does it fade into the void? Or does it find a way to be told?

These are just a few of the questions asked in Julia Alvarez’s newest novel, “The Cemetery of Untold Stories,” her seventh novel.

This is the story of Alma Cruz, a writer and professor coming to the end of her writing career. For decades she has written and published under the pseudonym, Scheherazade, (from “One Thousand and One Nights”) under which she has become a celebrated author. But she is still unhappy, as she has not had success in the publishing of histories or stories of people of color.

Alma finds herself surrounded by unfinished stories, half-written novels and piles of research she has no plans on finishing. She is afraid of the boxes of manuscripts, filled with characters with untold stories — she doesn’t want to disappear into the ether the way her mentor did. (Her mentor grew paranoid and distrustful as she pushed herself to finish that one last story — a novel that became an obsession and her undoing.)

Alma finds the solution to her problem in the Dominican Republic, her homeland, where she has inherited a small plot of land for her father. (She opts for the smallest piece of land, offering her three sisters better, larger options.) There she builds a cemetery for her manuscripts.

Alma believes she can unburden herself and release the characters that still haunt her by burying them. She burns many of the manuscripts; the ashes are buried. Some are given to an artist, Brava, who mixes them into one of her artworks — monuments and headstones created for the stories buried in the cemetery.

The townspeople watch, with suspicion and hope, as Alma builds her cemetery. Some think the woman has come unhinged, others dream of the jobs she might bring to the town. With disappointment, they watch the cemetery for Alma’s stories rise. The only way in is to tell a story to a small black call box hitched to the gate.

No one enters, until Filomena, a humble, illiterate villager, whispers her own story of loss and love into the box. Alma hires the woman as the cemetery’s caretaker. Filomena feels funny earning a salary for little work, but soon she becomes the caretaker of much more than buried ashes and art.


Filomena can hear the untold tales, as they seep up from the ground, whispering themselves in her ears. It seems Alma is wrong, her stories are not dead; will not go softly or quietly into the night.

Alma’s unfinished tale of Bienvenida Inocencia Ricardo swirls to life. Alma had tried, unsuccessfully to tell the story of Bienvenida, the exiled first wife of Dominican Dictator Rafael Trujillo, who was erased from history after she failed to produce an heir. We hear the tale of Dr. Manuel Cruz, Alma’s father, a dissident who fled to the United States.

As the stories unfurl in Filomena’s ear, they weave together, imparting history, immigrant experiences, and tales of Dominican women surviving despite the heavy thumb of the patriarchy. They become part of her own story and part of a long-standing tradition of oral storytelling. Alma need not worry that her stories were not published in a traditional sense of ink printed on bound paper.

“The Cemetery of Untold Stories” is Alvarez at her best as a novelist, a storyteller, and a historian. Her prose is rich and poignant. Her characters come to life, spring from the page and beg you not to put down the book until it is finished. Yet, this is a work that should be savored, read slowly and enjoyed.

I was so excited for this one! Magical realism coupled with Caribbean/Latin culture, yes please! And Alvarez did not disappoint. While it started a bit slow, I ultimately was enthralled by it. I will say my favorite parts were the actual stories, and the history as told through the stories. Alvarez beautifully captured Alma and Filomena, bringing them to vivid life. I particularly enjoyed Alma’s relationship with her sisters - as an only child myself, it is always fun to read about family dynamics. Beautifully written and fully captured what I was hoping for!

SYNOPSIS
- Alma is a successful writer, but she has some unfinished stories.
- She decides to stop writing. She recently inherited some land in the Dominican Republic, where she grew up, so she decides to move back there.
- On the land, Alma buries her unfinished stories in a cemetery of untold stories. She hires Filomena to care for the cemetery, and Alma also builds a casita on the land where the cemetery is.
- As Filomena cares for the cemetery, two of the characters from the untold stories tell her their stories. We also learn Filomena’s story.

MY THOUGHTS
- Magical realism with some historical fiction.
- Really enjoyed this one. Strong writing & super unique idea that was seamlessly executed. Alvarez is a rich storyteller, and I was so invested in what happened.
- Loved getting a glimpse of some of Dominican Republic’s history and culture as well.
- I enjoyed Alvarez’s mix of Spanish words throughout the book as well. It made all the stories feel more authentic.
- The only reason I am going 4 stars instead of 5 stars is the ending was just okay to me. With such an amazing book, I would have loved a stronger finish.

TL;DR: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️magical realism with some historical fiction. amazing character development, strong writing. unique premise and beautifully executed.

Thanks to Algonquin Press and Netgalley for this digital ARC in exchange for an honest review. This book is out now.