Thank you NetGalley for the ARC audiobook of The Cemetery of Untold Stories by Julia Alvarez.

I was intrigued by the concept of this book. An author with unfinished stories creates a cemetery to bury her untold stories. The characters of these stories do not want to live untold. The characters begin to tell their untold stories to the groundskeeper.

I really struggled with this book. There were so many characters and stories that they started to intertwine together. This story makes me thankful that I live in the United States.

A few of my favorite lines:

"If you bring forth what is inside you, what is inside you will save you. If you do not bring forth what is inside, what is inside you will destroy you."

"Some stories don't want to be told. Let them go."

"Well, if it's not written and not published, it'll die with its teller."

"That's why in certain tribes they say when an old person dies, a library is gone."

“I fell in love with the story I wanted to believe…”

""But also the other voices that come and go with the wind - each one offering a different view of the world.'

This has such a good premise, but the execution felt so choppy. We follow Alma, a former writer who inherits some land in the Dominican Republic. She decides to use some of her land to build a cemetery of untold stories where she literally buries all her unfinished stories, hoping to give her characters peace. But they kinda come to life in that place and the book unfolds from there.

The idea of a cemetery of untold stories is just so good! It's what led me to request this book and it started well enough, but it became a mess. It became very difficult to follow and I'm not sure if it's because I was listening to the audiobook. Maybe if I read the book, it would have been easier to make sense of everything, but since I got the audiobook, I have to be honest about my experience with the story in this format and it was just too convoluted for me to enjoy.

I think the narrator, Alma Cuero, did a good job at voicing this story, but the structure just didn't work for me.

This was an interesting idea for a book and it was written beautifully and the audiobook well narrated. I love the idea of the author in the book, Alma, burying her unfinished writings in a cemetery of her creation so that they can rest in peace. Several characters want their stories to be told, however.

Maybe because I listened to this in the NetGalley app in audiobook form and the chapters were kind of messed up, but I found this very confusing. The stories bounced around so randomly and it caused me to lose track of who was speaking at which time. Some of the stories I could follow were excellent, specifically Perla and Filomena’s, as well as Bienvenida’s. I think it was supposed to feel really meaningful seeing how they all connect, but because of the format, I don’t know how much I connected to it. I would recommend anyone who is interested in this read it in physical form.

Thank you NetGalley and publisher for this audio ARC!

What a great book!!!! I loved the Latine representation! I enjoyed the Untild Stories! All of the characters are great. Such a quick and easy great read.

I am struggling with how to review this book, as the audio was very well done, but I believe I would have enjoyed reading a paper edition more than listening. As a narrator, Alma Cuervo did a wonderful job, and her voice was an exceptionally good match for the female characters. I did, however, feel that the book would have been easier to understand if the recording had been done by a cast, as in audio I lost track of which character was speaking.

Thank you to Netgalley and Recorded Books for the audio copy of The Cemetery of Untold Stories. The opinions in this review are my own.

Where do stories come from? How are they passed down? If you don’t write them down, do they disappear into nothingness? They become silent. What happens to stories and characters that are written down but never published or read aloud? I loved the idea of this story, to bury untold stories and a cemetery. Alma, a writer, uses this cemetery to bury her dead manuscripts and characters so they don’t continue to haunt her. I thought this was well-written, but, unfortunately, I got lost in the many stories told. I loved the culture shown in this story set in the Dominican Republic. The characters were difficult to connect with and there seemed to be a lot of side characters. None were memorable.

I really liked The Cemetery of Untold Stories, the author did a great job of weaving the stories of so many characters. The idea of burying characters vs just throwing them away was great. After all to the author that wrote them and spent time creating them just throwing them away seems harsh. I really liked the blend of Spanish words mixed in.

At times I would forget which characters were stories within the stories and which were happening to the “real” characters.

Overall I would recommend this book. I listened to it in audiobook and really enjoyed it.

I have been a long time fan of Julia Alvarez and was so excited to have the opportunity to listen to her new one. I really loved the writing, Julia Alvarez has such a lovely way with words and I loved the imagery.

Alma has ended her career as a writer when she inherits a piece of land in the Dominican Republic. She decides to leave her home in the states and move there to create a cemetery of untold stories. The cemetery will only open for people who tell their stories at the gate -- which is an image that I really loved.

My favorite character and storyline was Filomena and her sister -- her story is so tragic and unexpected. I kept wanting to listen to see what would happen next.

I could vividly picture the cemetery and my favorite scenes were Alma burning her manuscripts and her sisters coming to visit her.

The narrator of the audiobook did an excellent job as well. I do wonder if some of the nuance of the writing was lost in listening to it, but I still thoroughly enjoyed it and look forward to reading more by Julia Alvarez.

Thank you to NetGalley for the advanced copy of this book!

The Cemetery of Untold stories is remarkable, replete with fascinating characters. The framing device is clever and the stories of all the women feel sincere and urgent.

Cuentame- Tell me a story.

This was a my first Julia Alvarez book and it did not disappoint.

Alma is a writer who has incomplete stories. Unable to for one reason or another, she finds she cannot finish them and decides to put them to rest. She creates a cemetery where she buries her unfinished work and hires Filomena to help tend the cemetery and asks her to just visit with the graves and listen. Soon, the unfinished stories have their own tales to tell.
I very much enjoyed Alma and her family, Filomena and her family and all the other colorful characters created by Julia in this small town in the Dominican Republic.

Thank you, NetGalley for the ARC!

I did not enjoy this audiobook. The storyline seemed choppy and overall anticlimactic. The audiobook narrator was good- I enjoyed her voice. I am not a Spanish speaker and some of the Spanish words/phrases in the book left gaps in my understanding of some parts of the story. That is part of the reason I did not enjoy this book. I love Julia Alvarez “In the time of the butterflies”. The parts of the story that took place in the Dominican Republic were interesting but not enough for me to rate it higher.

The writing and storytelling in the Cemetery of Untold Stories was excellent!

This book follows Alma, a writer who returns to the Dominican Republic after inheriting some land. She creates a cemetery to bury her unfinished stories to give them some finality. She hired a local woman, Filomena, to caretake the cemetery and we get to hear Filomena’s life story as well.

I really enjoyed getting to know each character in this book. There was a lot of depth to the characters and I became engrossed in each story. I did sometimes get confused when it would switch stories as on audio it wasn’t very clear that it was switching. I did end up feeling a little confused at times due to this. Even though I really enjoyed the narrator, I think this is one that might be better as a physical book to fully absorb it all.

Thank you NetGalley for the arc in exchange for my honest review.

I really enjoyed the concept of this book! I thought it was interesting to read all of the untold stories and how they intertwined. At some points it was hard to decipher between some of the characters and their stories. It was very intriguing to hear each story come to life while also being laid to rest.

This was my first Julia Alvarez book, and it turned out to be a fantastic experience. The audiobook was well done, with a narrator whose voice really fit the mood of the story. The characters are all fleshed out, each with their own depth and complexities. While the audio version was excellent, the number of characters was a bit overwhelming at times—I think reading a physical copy might've made it easier to keep track of everyone. Just a heads up, the book weaves in themes of trauma through a blend of history and magical realism, so be mindful in choosing this.

Disclaimer: I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own. Thank you to Netgalley, Algonquin Books, and RB Media for this free copy. All quotes in this review are taken from the Advanced Reader Copy and may change in final publication.

I am back to write another review! Yay for getting my reviews in.

This was my first ever Julia Alvarez book and I am so glad that I got to experience her writing for the first time. I am looking forward to checking out the rest of her backlist at some point in my life now that I was able to listen to this one. Oh, also I have to say that Alma Cuervo is an amazing narrator and I feel like she matched well with this story. I personally would have liked if there were other narrators for the “characters” telling their stories, but that’s just my preference. It didn’t take away from Alma’s performance nor the story. But I do feel like she really embodied the character of Alma very well, and thought she was a good choice for the job.

This was such an interesting premise, and it does make me wonder about what all of those characters would be doing if they didn’t have this opportunity to tell their stories. It also kind of makes me wonder if they felt like they should tell their stories so that Alma would actually write them since she was stuck on all of their journeys. Like, one of the things that – as an aspiring writer at one point in my life – I wish I could have experienced was my characters telling me their story and what they wanted me to share to the rest of the world. It could have almost been like if she were taking dictation of their oral story and just transcribing in onto paper for them. It also made me wonder if Alma started suffering from dementia towards the end based on how one of the other side characters described her behavior. It was almost going full circle with what Alma saw happen to her author friend in the beginning of the novel.

I think it was such a beautiful story, and I would love the opportunity to read it physically one day.

I absolutely love this premise. And all the characters felt very fleshed out; all except for the main character Alma, which is ironic. She had no personality, and really didn't do anything other than build the cemetery.

Very well-done and well-written though. I did have a bit of trouble keeping track of all the characters, though I don't know if that's the author's fault, or because I listened to it on audiobook, but either way I don't fully fault Alvarez for that.

I loved the ending, it was so satisfying, and just made me happy.

This was a beautiful story. A story about stories and how they can seemingly come to fife when conjured from the mind.

I thought this was told in such a way that really brought the events off page, floating through my mind’s eye in perfect clarity. I opted for the audiobook and it was narrated superbly.

Alma has a unique view on her stories and how she wants them to live in or die peacefully, so she creates a cemetery for them. It’s once she creates this sanctuary for them to rest in peace that their real stories come to life.

I loved the writing style. I adored the characters. This was such a beautifully told story within a story and I felt such a strong connection while listening to it.

The story of The Cemetery of Untold Stories written by Julia Alvarez is a beautifully written story about sisters, children, unspeakable acts and life with terribly dominating men. I listened to the audio of this book and really loved the narrator. I’m sorry to say that I missed quite a lot, because my Spanish is not up to snuff, and there were many Spanish words in the book of which the meanings were lost to me. The prose is beautiful. This is a compelling book about women’s lives. I was particularly taken with the life of Verda, who committed the most unspeakable act and lived the rest of her life in silence with her son, trying to get her to come out of this horrible state of mind. An interesting story!

What I was looking for/thought I needed: an overall feel-good, happy-ending magical realism tale with relatively little angst (think Sarah Addison Allen, Heather Webber, Alice Hoffman).

What I got/perhaps needed: a trauma-heavy historical fiction/magical realism mash-up.

Admittedly, I really shouldn't have expected the former. The historical fiction aspect is the substance, focusing on the incredible challenges of a people—including but not limited to corrupt government, persecution, toxic masculinity and patriarchy, and the plight of women.

I wish that Alma had been a greater part of the story. Beyond the fact that it's her writings coming to new life in the cemetery, she doesn't play much of a part in the story. There are interactions with her sisters involving the distribution of their father's estate, but these, too, are minor in the grand scheme of things. I may just be looking at this too superficially: of course Alma is a major player—these words, these stories are borne from her, though they take on a life of their own (the magical realism aspect of the novel).

The novel repeatedly talks about the historical and cultural importance of oral tradition, while placing additional importance on committing stories to writing. It's so interesting that Alma understands the critical nature of the written word, and yet buries such a large portion of her work, ensuring that the stories will die with her.

Ultimately, I appreciated Alma's father's story the most, followed by the story of Bienvenida Ricardo—ex-wife of Dominican military commander and dictator Rafael Leónidas Trujillo Molina (“El Jefe”).

While I didn't get what I wanted (because of my unrealistic expectations) out of The Cemetery of Untold Stories, I have—for the second time this week—read a deep and impressive work that I wouldn't have chosen based on current mood alone. Good for me! 3.5⭐

This unbiased review is based on an audio ARC supplied by the publisher—RB Media. It was published earlier this week—April 2.