The Last Cuentista

By: Donna Barba Higuera / Narrated By: Frankie Corzo / Cover Illustration By: Raxenne Maniquiz

Length: 8 hrs and 33 mins

What a surprise! What a delight! Intricate, thoughtful… heartrending and heartwarming!!!

I admit it: Sometimes I go into an audiobook with a chip on m’ shoulder. Big Sis is so very fond of Magical Realism, that she and I have dived into MANY an audiobook only to be underwhelmed, disappointed, outright disgusted (Think Spring Flowers, Spring Frost… Booooooo!).

So even tho’ The Last Cuentista is Sci-Fi, its Storytelling Elements, plus its focus on Hispanic Heritage and how RICH the culture, my culture, can be? Well, it had Magical Realism written all over it… and I’ve been soooo disappointed before. Big Sis decided ‘pon it for a Cinco de Mayo Listen… and I somewhat subtly rolled my eyes, went in, yessss, big ol’ chip on the shoulder. This had BETTER be GOOD!!!

Oh my, and how it is, how it is!!!

The story opens with young Petra spending the last hours she will ever spend with her grandma Lita. Lita is telling her a cuenta, as she does, and the heartbroken Petra vows that she WILL be a Storyteller just like her abuelita. NOT a scientist as her parents would like her to be, even tho’ Science is what is saving her immediate family from annihilation. A comet that was s’posed to swerve juuuuust away from the Earth is now destined to strike it instead, obliterating all life, grandma Lita included. Petra is beyond devastated.

-BUT- she and her parents and her little brother Javier, will be in stasis for hundreds of years, tended to by individuals who will live and tend and then die on their ship, all in sacrifice to Hope for the Human Race.

Something goes wrong, however, when Petra is being Put Under, and she is just aware somewhat, every now and again, to sense what is going on around outside her pod.

And it ain’t good.

She wakes hundreds of years later, and she’s no longer Petra but has been given a nondescript label for a name instead. All is conformity, all is dictatorial. Nope, it ain’t good at all. Add to that? She’s been hearing of Purges, and cannot find her mother and father, her little brother Javier. Purged? Gone? How is she to go on?

By struggling against The Collective.

By remembering stories of an Earth that has been obliterated from all the newly-wakened’s memories. By offering cuentas each night to other youngsters, all very hush-hush, no raised voices, before bed.

Author Donna Barba Higuera does a simply masterful, magical, emotional job with her story-crafting here. There are offerings of Spanish she soooometimes translates, but for the most part, she lets it flow like a story unspooled, beckoning, charming, delighting as it unwinds into something magnificent. Hints of Mexican folklore, hints of New Mexican charm, and blue-blazing pacing make this enchanting.

There is tension. There are twists and turns. There are surprises that’ll leave you on the edge of your seat -OR- sobbing into your hankie. And you WILL need a hankie.

When all is said, when all is done, Higuera manages to craft an ending that Michael J. Sullivan WISHES he could write. It leaves the listener Uber-satisfied with loose threads drawn together; it leaves the listener wanting more, if it’s coming, should the author wish a sequel. No reprehensible manipulation, dude! Check THIS story out, Sullivan, oh DO!!!

Also, tho’ Frankie Corzo totally needs an elocution coach to break her of her annoying habit of swallowing ending syllables, she does really, honestly, truly well with her performance here. I KNOW!!! I’m NOT gonna slam her narration! Rather, her pacing was spot-on, her characters were charming and distinguishable, she notched her speed up a bit for grueling tension, and she just did, well, a super job.

And when it all hits the fan, like, several times, you’re breathless, you’re teary-eyed. AWEsomely done, Ms. Corzo, now see about enunciating your ending syllables properly, oh DO!!!

Engaging from start to finish, cuentas and folklore to die for. Wonderful character arcs that are not only believable but are heartbreaking as well. Surprises! Emotion! Excitement!

This, my dear fellow Accomplice, is how the Magical, the Enchanted, the Fanciful, is S’POSED to be written…!

Amazon