Velorio audiobook

This novel is a magnificent blend of the horrific and the sublime. It begins with a mother and her two daughters anxiously waiting the arrival of Hurricane Maria. The way their fear blends with their fatalism somehow captures perfectly what it must feel like when something awful, and yet inevitable, is coming for you. One daughter survives the hurricane, and the other does not, and the reason why the girl dies--her mother is being so insufferable that the girl flees to the next room, which promptly collapses and fills with mud--is all the more disturbing because of the matter-of-fact way these events are played out in the prose. Here is where the narrative voice really begins to drive home what kind of story we're in for--when the surviving sister cuts off her dead sister's little finger--the only piece of her sister not buried in mud--for a keepsake. It's the surviving sister's voice, filled with hopeless despair and child-like wonder in equal measure, that keeps propelling this story forward into ever more unexpected and creative directions. It's one of those books you need to be in the mood for, because it's relentless. I was in the mood for it. Wonderful.

Sort of Lord of the Flies meets post-apocalyptic nightmare regime, except the apocalypse in question is Hurricane Maria and the horrors are (in some ways) things that really happened and our government let it happen.

“To erase old memory and plant new memory is every attempt of conquest” from Velorio This novel does an excellent job of exploring the “violent” trauma that came as a result of Hurricane Maria in combination with the feeling of abandonment. It shows the internal struggle from characters to wait for the “savior” that will never come or to become one. This all takes place in an island that, even in the wake of tragedy, was “forgotten” by its colonizer. Velorio unapologetically reaches out to you with a heartbreaking confession of trauma and pain with the hope of not being once again forgotten.

So I have to start off by saying that Velorio felt absolutely true (the story is fiction but based on actual events), relatable and though the story had supernatural and almost mystical world building it also felt like this place and people could very well had inhabited Puerto Rico in the aftermath of the destruction caused by Hurricane Maria.This multi-POV story follows several characters tied together by tragedy and through their experience end up in Memoria; a newly created city by a leader taking advantage of their situation to crown himself a leader in the vein of jesus himself. What at first begins as a place that sought to fight the faults of the old government soon mimics and makes the situation for the people allowed within it's make-shift walls far worse and threatening. Through their shared journeys; Banto, Morivivi, Camila, Urayon, Chao and Bayfish tell the story of healing and recovery of an island ravaged by the forces of nature.Each character had a unique voice and perspective and I found the banter and language (even though I am Mexican not Puerto Rican) totally relatable and funny, and moving and heartbreaking. With vivid story telling Xavier Navarro Aquino managed to tell a story that was moving and well paced and it's characters jumped to life off the pages. Bravo.

Aquino captures the beauty of hardship and the resilience of the human will to survive. In the aftermath of Hurricane Maria, a cast of characters seek survival and continuation. The polyvocal structure of the novel was well played and had us revolving back and forth between characters. The novel is well written, and ultimately gives us a character snaps shot of Puerto Rico as though it in itself is a representation of humanity. Very much worth the read, and will leave you reflecting on an island long after you close the pages.

3.5 🌟Honestly, this is a hard book for me to review. I listened to the audiobook, and it was sometimes a struggle for me to continue. It quickly becomes very dark and morbid, and while I knew that this book dealt with the hardships of life in Puerto Rico after a hurricane, I wasn't expecting it to verge on a horror story.Death and destruction are left in the wake of the hurricane. Urayoán, a dangerous and charismatic leader, creates a society new society, throwing out promises to correct the government that has failed the people. But Urayoán has his band of boys who do his dirty work, and it proves to be quite nasty.I'm was intrigued by the cult aspect in this premise, but there were too many perspectives. I was confused at times and a little lost. I don't want to distract anyone from reading this; some of the language and imagery are raw and beautiful. But please be warned it does discuss death, child abuse, suicide, child abuse, verbal abuse, and desecration of corpses. Thank you to @HarperViabooks for this gifted copy.

Even though this is a work of fiction, I imagine that so many people can relate to the tragically beautiful descriptions Navarro Aquino provides of trying to find hope and life amidst the destruction on the island. One of my favorite lines: “I felt the warmth from ghosts come overme, a quiet peace reminding me vulnerability breaks even the hardest fool, even if you did not believe or carry faith, in that space, faith carried you.”

a beautiful, heaartwrenching novel. This is a timely read that will once again put Puerto Rico deservingly in the spotlight. One of the best books of the year.

"Velorio" by Xavier Navarro Aquino is a "Lord of the Flies" type novel set in Puerto Rico in the aftermath of Hurricane Maria. The writing is absolutely gorgeous, but the plot is brutal and horrific. This book touched a nerve with me; I have personally experienced being in Puerto Rico both before an

I bought this book at The Bookmark bookstore in Santurce, San Juan, PR while on a recent trip. The bookseller recommended it when I asked for PR-authored books in English, and I really enjoyed it. This book feels a bit like a Cormac McCarthy novel like _The Road_, with that grim journey vibe, as well as the short, indirect dialogue that McCarthy uses.

Through multiple viewpoints, Aquino uses flashbacks, the present time and traces of “Lord of the flies” to trace a story of devastation, sorrow, hopelessness, murder and betrayal. The strong love Puerto Ricans feel for their land as well as the bond of friendship are interwoven in this powerful book to give hope when there seems to be none. Read more about this book on my blog: https://shouldireaditornot.wordpress....

3.5 rounded up Velorio is told in the aftermath of Hurricane Maria. Puerto Rico lays in ruin and the people on the island await government help that never comes. News of a new government, a new community on the mountain spreads across the towns and soon the promise of Memoría guides the lost and helpless to its angry red gate. It took me awhile to get pulled into Velorio, so much so that I considered DNFing around the 30% mark. I’m glad I persisted because once the story got moving I read the second half in one sitting. The promise of Memoría and Ura seems too good to be true and it’s not long before the new society begins to crumble. The last third of Velorio is pretty horrifying to read as the group runs out of food and other necessities. At times this book read like a horror novel because of the violence and chaos Ura and his reds inflicted upon the others. The story is told from several different point of views and I think that is what added to my reluctance to continue on. While some of the voices were distinct, I don’t think they were all necessary and it slowed down the storyline at times. This was a very well written debut and I look forward to reading more by this author in the future. Thank you to NetGalley and HarperVia for a review copy.

In the aftermath of Hurricane Maria, people living in Puerto Rico are forced to find ways to survive as both the Puerto Rican and US governments repeatedly failed them. Velorio is a story of how some people came together, some people grieved in ways other couldn't understand, not just for the loss of people they loved but the life they remembered; and how some people took advantage of a system to carve out a life they would have more control over. Characters end up at Memoria - almost a commune where people can get food, water, companionship. The commune leader allows his most ardent and vicious supporters to make examples of anyone who defies him, in a situation reminiscent of Lord of the Flies. While the the leader, Urayoan, does have POV chapters that give insight into his message and how much he believes what he's working toward as opposed to how much he's trying to fill a power vacuum, grab agency he never had before, the heart of the story are Bayfish, Banto, Camila, and Morivivi as they try to figure out how to survive, who they can trust and how they can move forward.The book is exceptionally dark, clearly meant to show the very different ways people react to catastrophic events.

Velorio is antithetical to a light summer read. Author Xavier Navarro Aquino, born and raised in Puerto Rico, weaves together in this 2022 novel an imaginative and often uncomfortable, often demanding, parable into the reality of 2017 Hurricane Maria’s devastation across the entirety of Puerto Rico. On the dedication page of Velorio (wake), Navarro Aquino sets out a warning flag for what’s going to be an unsettling read: “For the thousands lost and the unaccounted.” Within the name of the antagonist, Urayoan, the author signals the allegorical nature of this novel. Urayoan was the name of a 16th century Taino chief famous for ordering the drowning of Diego Salcedo to determine whether the Spanish were gods. For this debut novel, Navarro Aquino, an assistant professor of English at the University of Notre Dame, found a fitting publisher, HarperVia, which, as stated by HarperCollins, “is an imprint dedicated to publishing international voices which offer readers the chance to encounter other lives and other points of view via the language of imagination.” Velorio is all of that.

It's been a long time since I picked up a random book and fell completely into the spell of the images generated by the word selection and the story. Contemporary, award winning writer has shared a story of the traps of experience when disaster, folkways and tragedy share the same thin line. Periodi