Coco: A Story About Music, Shoes, and Family
By: Diana López / Narrated By: Frankie Maria Corzo
Length: 5 hrs and 36 mins
A real charmer!
First, I saw that Frankie Maria Corzo was narrating this and kinda groaned. Are she and plain Frankie Corzo one and the same, cuz the other Frankie Corzo narration I have left me mightily unimpressed. So I googled and discovered they are, naturally, the same. Only I got an eyeful because on her website’s intro page she’s all buxom and is exposing cleavage galore and is basically falling out of her dress top. This? I wondered, is the person who will be narrating my beloved Coco?
Yup, and I suggest you NOT look her up as I spent about 5 hours of the 5h 36m of this audiobook trying DESperately to think of her in a cable knit cardigan sweater and not pouring outta her clothes.
Okay, that was neither here nor there, but it does show what my knee-jerk reactions were, and how distracted I was when I started listening.
So imagine how delighted and surprised I was when I heard Corzo read in an unaffected manner and with the proper Latina accent. PHEW!!!
The story opens with young Miguel spending time with his great grandmother Coco, a woman who once sang to him as a baby—this in a family that has banned music from their lives. Miguel is excited, he WANTS to be a musician like the Mariachis in the town square, and he wants to bring joy to people’s lives. And he does NOT want to be told: No Music even one more time. Naturally, instantly we see how his Abuelita jumps all over him right away and Miguel hightails it to the town square to shine shoes.
Theirs is a family of generations who all make shoes; theirs is a family who will do ANYthing to keep Miguel from entering the town talent show as a >gasp< musician. But Miguel will not be swayed and even tho’ his grandma breaks his homemade guitar, he runs away to find another instrument, hurling back words about not wanting to be part of such a family.
I reeeeeally disliked his family in this audiobook, more so than I did when watching the movie. I can’t blame Corzo for harsh narration, rather the women in the family were just mean-spirited and petty and unyielding. I don’t like it when I dislike main characters, but there you go. And when Miguel and his dog Dante wind up in the land of the dead, we’re introduced to yet another cast-iron woman who I felt was being unfair and even cruel.
Like the movie, there’s a dash through the land of the dead to meet Miguel’s hero, a famous musician who might be able to grant the blessing Miguel needs to return to the land of the living. So there’s that. But the audiobook also has more about Coco and her life than is in the movie, and she’s just a breath of fresh air. We see that, no matter how harsh her family became, she, Coco, always had music in her heart, a longing to dance. Just when I’d be getting fed up with the family members, the story would cut to more of Coco and huzzah for that!!!
Miguel meets many an individual, but he is helped most often by Héctor, a skeleton/ghost who is soooo close to being forgotten, to turning into dust and going into a blank void/nothingness. Each year on Día de los Muertos, he tries to cross into the land of the living, but each year nobody has put his photo out to remember him. It’s truly touching how his story unfolds, and it adds much needed warmth to a story that could merely be cute.
Corzo could do better in the narration department as there are a couple of twin uncles who quip and quibble at each other and one is supposed to get a rat-a-tat-tat sorta feel from their sparring dialogue which Corzo doesn't manage. And there are MANY scenes that descend into chaos (Think Tía pressing every single button, pulling every single lever that manages a stage) which come off as rather more ho-hum than brisk and exciting. Still, she captures Miguel’s longings and desires, Héctor’s words of bracing encouragement, and Coco’s whimsical daydreaming quite well, enough so that this was an overall charmer of a Listen.
Nothing objectionable at all in this story, mostly about Love healing all and forgiveness saving the day—this is perfect for a family listen. You stuck making a Halloween costume and measuring your kid today? Give Coco a listen. Or are you and yours going to shelter in place? Oh dooooo give Coco a listen!
It’s not often that a novelization of a movie is as good as the movie, but here it is. All the heart and drama and friendship of the movie, plus a few bits of wanting to throttle unyielding matriarchs, plus several bits of a Coco who just wants to dream and dance. Sweet, so sweet—maybe as sweet as sugar skulls!
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