Maya’s Notebook
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4.3 • 25 Ratings
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- $8.99
Publisher Description
From the author of ‘The House of Spirits’ – teenage Maya is in trouble. She’s an alcoholic, an addict and deeply involved with a criminal gang. How did it all go so wrong?
Abandoned by her parents as a baby, Maya has been brought up by her tough grandmother Nini and her gentle grandfather Popo.
At school, the teenage Maya finds herself drawn towards the wrong crowd. Before she knows what’s happened, Maya’s life has turned into one of drug addiction and crime.
Things go from bad to worse as Maya disappears into the criminal underworld. To save her from her old associates, Nini sends Maya to a remote island off the coast of Chile. Here she lives among a traditional rural people, the Chilote, who have remained untouched by the materialism of the modern world.
Basking in the warmth of the Chiloé community, Maya feels compelled to write her story and slowly she begins to heal. But can she move beyond her pain, find forgiveness and learn to live with the scars of the past?
Reviews
Praise for Maya’s Notebook:
‘Another impressive feat with a dazzling cast and bold array of landscapes, woven together with the storytelling prowess that is Allende’s trademark.’ Daily Telegraph, 4 stars
‘Isabel Allende is a mistress storyteller… [her] capacity to surprise keeps her readers page-turning, as do her descriptions of character and place’ Independent
‘Maya is the lightest of narrative guises: wise beyond her 19 years but convincingly coltish.’ Guardian
‘An exciting read, well paced.’ Daily Express
About the author
Born in Peru and raised in Chile, Isabel Allende is the author of eighteen books, including Inès of My Soul, Daughter of Fortune, and Portrait in Sepia. She has also written a collection of stories, four memoirs, and a trilogy of children's novels. Her books have been translated into more than twenty-seven languages and have become bestsellers across four continents. In 2004 she was inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Isabel Allende lives in California.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Allende (The House of the Spirits) moves away from her usual magical realist historical fiction into a contemporary setting, and the result is a chaotic hodgepodge. The story, told through 19-year-old Maya Vidal's journals, alternates between Maya's dismal past and uncertain present, which finds her in hiding on an isolated island off Chile's coast, where her grandmother, Nidia, has taken her. Maya's diary relates a journey into self-destruction that begins, after her beloved step-grandfather Popi's death, with dangerous forays into sex, drugs, and delinquency, but ends up in a darkly cartoonish crime caper, as she becomes involved with gangsters in Las Vegas. Maya describes her present surroundings, meanwhile, with a bland detachment that would be more believable coming from an anthropologist than a teenager. Allende's trademark passion for Chile is as strong as ever, and her clever writing lends buoyancy to the narrative's deadweight, but this novel is unlikely to entrance fans old or new.
Customer Reviews
Maya's notebook
Another reading treasure from Isabel Allende. Adventure, history and Latin American culture combined in a satisfying tale. I enjoyed this modern day story with a healthy dose of magic and superstitions. Not as dense as some of her work and a great one as an intro for teenage or young readers into the joys of reading Allende.