Book Review: “Lotería” by Cynthia Pelayo
Håfa adai and welcome to spooky season, my favorite month of the year! Throughout October 2024, I will publish reviews for works of horror, suspense, and the supernatural. There are five Wednesdays this month! For this month’s bonus post, I will share my fifth spooky pick for October 2024: Lotería, by Cynthia Pelayo.
This book review consists of two parts: a spoiler-free plot summary and my thoughts on the story. In the second part, I give my personal rating and break down the setting and worldbuilding, storytelling, cast of characters, and themes. There may be some lightweight spoilers—such as how characters interact with each other and the world around them—but I will not give away any major plot twists or endings. I want to share my opinions of the book and maybe encourage you to purchase a copy of your own.
Click on the tags at the bottom of this post to see all reviews with the same tags in the Horror bookshelf.
Spoiler-Free Plot Summary
Lotería is one of the most popular Mexican board games enjoyed by families all over the world. Similar to the American board game known as Bingo, Lotería is a game of probabilities where a player must make a pattern with 4 chips on a 4x4 grid card. Unlike Bingo, which uses letters and numbers within its tablet grids, Lotería tablets feature simple yet beautiful illustrations of objects, people, and figures from Mexican fairy tales. In Cynthia Pelayo’s Lotería, each of the 54 cards in the world renowned board game represents a story of horror, sorted in the order their namesakes are numbered in the Lotería deck of cards. Ranging from the paranormal to the criminal, this collection of horror short stories will send chills down your spine.
Important Trigger Warning for Lotería
Many of the short stories in Lotería depict physical violence, sexual violence, kidnapping and abduction, human trafficking, gore, and more. These themes are essential to the stories shared. If these are themes that cause you distress or discomfort in any way, then please make sure to take necessary steps to prepare and protect yourself before and after reading this book.
My Thoughts on Lotería: 5 stars!
There are 54 stories shared in Cynthia Pelayo’s Lotería—one for each card a player encounters in the renowned board game—ranging from a few sentences to pages long. To keep this book review at a manageable length, and keeping in mind that a pattern of 4 chips is needed to score in the game of Lotería, I will share brief summaries of 4 picks from this collection.
El Gallo
Señor Julian has lost farm animal after animal to a strange creature. It sounded like a dog, but moved too fast and its form was too light. He has lost many goats, chickens, and even—most tragically—his 11 year-old dog. Now he is scared of losing his cows. He had sworn he locked his barn door before night fell. But when the crow of El Gallo (the rooster) was suddenly silenced, he realized his horrid mistake. He was too late. The creature had struck again.
El Diablito
Sebastian can hear them scratching from inside the walls at night. “He,” the voice that speaks to the little boy, said He would be back for Sebastian. Sebastian is terrified and his father is doing what he can to help his son; to find answers for what has just happened to his family. Sebastian’s father speaks to an older man who believes Sebastian’s claims that El Diablito (the little devil), which Sebastian and the older man both identify by another name, was responsible for what happened to him and to his mother. But he knows the courts will never believe him.
El Paraguas
Umberto Rafael is a young up-and-coming archaeologist excavating a recently-encountered Mayan city, long reclaimed by the dense jungles. Professor Nuñez and his assistant, the older and more experienced archaeologist’s mentee in training, has appeared without warning to announce to Umberto that he would be taking over the excavation—along with all the credit and renown that will be associated with it—away from the younger archaeologist. Upon hearing Professor Nuñez’ intentions, Umberto leaves the shade of El Paraguas (the umbrella) to talk to the older man about his plans and to put a stop to them.
La Sirena
Celia Santos is one day away from her 15th birthday. But she would not be given a proper presentation, a quinceñera. The approaching harvest season in El Norte means her parents need the money for a Coyote to take her father from their town to Florida. And the announcement of her mother’s sixth pregnancy only adds to the already strained finances the family is facing. But her father would find a way to pay the Coyote. Celia overhears his conversation with a group of men that afternoon and, later that night, is forcefully taken from her bed to become one of La Sirena (the mermaid).
My overall rating for Cynthia Pelayo’s Lotería is 5 out of 5 stars! As is probably clear throughout the book reviews in the Bookmarks & Armchairs blog, I love short story collections. The ability to capture a reader’s attention and convey a full (and wonderfully terrifying) story arc over the course of mere minutes is an astonishing accomplishment. I was initially concerned that the large number of stories—54 total—would result in the individual stories blurring together. But that was absolutely not the case. Every story is different enough from the one immediately before it and after it that its respective nuance stands out clearly from the crowd. Picking a small sample of stories to present in this post was no easy task.
The graphic imagery and scenes depicted in Lotería put this collection in a category of intense horror. I would not say that it is as intense as Never Whistle at Night—a collection of short stories from multiple authors—but it does contain an incredible amount of both explicit and implied graphic imagery. I did not need to take breaks in between stories, as I had to for Never Whistle at Night. I recommend Lotería for those who appreciate intense horror as well as those wanting to consume more intense horror for the first time. I first experienced this book in audio form, with stories read by Lori Barkin, Leonel Garza, and Andrew Joseph Perez. The audiobook readers of Lotería do a brilliant job of bringing Cynthia Pelayo’s terrifying stories to life. I definitely want to purchase a physical copy of this book to see on my shelf.
Dångkulo' na' saina ma'åse'! Thank you so much for reading my review of Lotería by Cynthia Pelayo.
Rating Cheat Sheet
4.75 - 5.00 stars: Everyone should read this book! (If you’re into that sort of thing.)
4.00 - 4.50 stars: I appreciated many aspects of this book. I recommend it!
3.00 - 3.75 stars: I liked some aspects of this book. I won’t revisit it, but someone else might really like it.
2.00 - 2.75 stars: There were some things I appreciated about this book, but I do not recommend it.
0.25 - 1.75 stars: I do not recommend this book. I did not enjoy or appreciate the experience of it.
Post Date: 30 October 2024
Published: 17 August 2012 by Burial Day Books
Republished: 21 February 2023 by Agora Books
Audiobook Publisher: 1 May 2023 by OrangeSky Audio
