Loteria by Cynthia Pelayo

Loteria Reviews

• 
  Kathleen

  Loved the Mexican folklore aspects of the stories but OVERALL…there was just something missing for me, unfortunately. High 2, low 3 star read.
• 
  V. Castro

  Do you know about Loteria? It's a Mexican game, like bingo, played with 54 cards with images, not unlike Tarot cards.
  I absolutely LOVE how this book uses each card to tell a different tale about different people from all parts of the Latin American world. I dog-eared my favourite stories as I read but I soon realized pretty much every tale was a favourite😂🖤 Beautifully written and thought-provoking, I can't tell you how wonderful it is hear a voice, not unlike my own, reflecting stories from my culture. The creep factor is 💯all the way through 👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽
  This book is a perfect example why stories written by people of colour about people of colour are vital to promoting inclusion and understanding. Despite what certain ignorant groups may say, our voices and lives have value.
  If one story completely spoke to me it would be El Soldado (The Soldier), as it is about the women working in maquiladoras that often go missing. This dear to my heart because it is the very subject of my vampire novel.
  I ABSOLUTELY recommend this book written by super talented Latina.
• 
  Sadie Hartmann

  Flash fiction collection. Buddy read over the weekend with a friend, review to come!
• 
  Silvia Moreno-Garcia

  I'm terrible because I was going to review Loteria a long time ago and then I took forever to read it. Anyway, this is a collection of very short stories all inspired by the cards of the Loteria game. Loteria is something similar to Bingo, but you use cards with pictures. It's an iconic game.
  Loteria is experimental and sometimes does not succeed in its individual efforts, but overall I found it an interesting concept. It's worthy of reading because there's very little out there like this. If you have an interest in Hispanic literature it's a good bet.
• 
  Shasta

  I really wanted to like this book. I love horror and I love short stories. A good short story can do so much with so little.
  
  Not this book. This book was a collection or trite, surface level stories based on commonly known myths that were supposed to be shocking but fell flat. There was absolutely no substance. I felt like I was reading stories in my freshman creative writing class.
  
  At points I was actually ANGRY that I had to finish it.
• 
  G. Munson

  Lotería caught me from the start because it's such a cool idea. Yes, I'm a fan of theme anthologies, so I may be a little biased. Still, the idea of 54 flash pieces based on the 54 cards of a Mexican game of chance is pretty wicked. While reading, I felt immersed in the culture of the game even though I'd never heard of it until reading this book. As you may expect, most of the stories are pretty short, some not even a page in length. That doesn't stop them from being fairly intense little packets of horror. Often I would find myself wanting there to be more, which I look at as both good and bad.
  
  The good is that my interest was caught on most stories from the very start. The bad is that some of the stories were too short to be a story, or even (in my opinion) to be considered a flash piece. For some, I felt I was reading merely a snippet of what could be a pretty cool story rather than a complete work. Thankfully, this was not the norm. Most of the stories were complete works on their own, although many could easily be adapted to longer works if the author was so inclined.
  
  As with any collection, I didn't love all the stories. There were a few I didn't even like, but considering the number of stories I seriously doubt anyone would love them all. By the time I reached the end I could barely remember the ones I didn't like; however, the ones I really liked kept playing in my head long past the point where I should have been sleeping. No matter what you're looking for, this book has it. Give it a shot, all you have to lose is maybe a little sleep at night...
• 
  Iris L

  Lotería es un libro de cuentos, relatos latinoamericanos, leyendas urbanas de nuestra cultura.
  
  Cada carta de la lotería cuenta una historia breve basada en el personaje u objeto de la baraja de la lotería.
  Por varios días leí junto con mis hijos y sus amigos como si hubiera sido un juego clásico de lotería.
  
  Las historias abarcan diferentes entidades, desde leyendas argentinas, el chupacabras, la llorona, el sombrerón y hasta el mismísimo ya famoso Panteón de Belen y lo que sus perturbadoras historias nos cuentan.
  Infalible para unos días spooky y para abrir conversaciones sobre nuestra cultura en LATAM
• 
  Regine

  Some really good ones peppered throughout but otherwise a bit predictable. Not necessarily poor-formed — I still enjoyed reading all of them. I just think some of the stories, especially if you’re part of the Latin community who grew up on them, could’ve used some added complexity.
  
  The language gets a bit clunky at times and takes you out of the moment, but that may have just been the result of translation? Not sure. This probably reads more beautifully in Spanish now that I think about it.
• 
  Audra (ouija.reads)

  Loteria is a collection of 54 stories, each one taking an image from the titular card game and spinning a dark tale. What really drew me to this collection was how the author wove classic Latin American folklore and superstition into the tales.
  
  I don’t have a ton of knowledge on the subject, which is why I was interested to hear about it from a knowledgeable author who comes from that culture. Reading these stories was a wonderfully authentic experience. Many of the stories had me googling to see what classic tale the storyline might have been adapted from or to learn more about the creatures. Though they are steeped in cultural folklore, the stories are also quite original.
  
  I would consider this a flash fiction collection, with each story being just a few pages, with some even shorter than a page. Though some are quite strong, most of the stories felt underdeveloped to me, and in some ways, I thought this collection would have been more successful if it had just been ten or so stories that developed the ideas more fully.
  
  I would be remiss to not mention the editing—there is a fair amount of grammar, spelling, and consistency mistakes in this book. As a reader, I always find errors like these to be distracting as I’m reading.
  
  Overall, this is an excellent dark short story collection that gave me a firsthand glimpse into a culture that I don’t know very much about. That’s one of the reasons I so love reading—it is able to show me perspectives that aren’t my own and broaden my view of the world.
  
  If you have any interest in folklore, this book will be a welcome addition to expanding your mythic knowledge.
• 
  Moisés

  I really wanted to like this book. I love the premise: every lotería card being a prompt for a story, but most of the stories felt too easy. There are some good ones, but the majority of these stories left me wanting more. The majority are flash, and I am a big fan of flash, but these felt too incomplete. And most of these stories pulled the same move at the end—boom, sudden surprise(!), different variations of “and then I woke up and realized it was a dream.” Which is ugh. Not a good kind of surprise. It’s a difficult move to pull off and I don’t think any of these flashes did. I rolled my eyes when it happened again and again. These stories feel like what a beginner writer would do (which is fine, it’s how you learn!) but it doesn’t work. It’s a shame. I loved the cover of the book. I was pulled in by the promise of folklore and ghosts and horror, but I struggled to finish. I skimmed most of the second half because I was, sadly, bored.
• 
  TheBeachyBookworm

  I wanted to like this book so much but I simply was not a fan of the short stories. The stories were too short and I feel like we didn’t get much out of them. There were some stories that I really enjoyed, but it seemed like every other story was about the murder/SA/abuse of a woman. And because the stories were so short, I didn’t get any closure/justice from these violent stories. The chapters often ended very abruptly with violence against a woman or child. I almost DNF’d at like 80% because that kept happening over and over, but I went ahead and finished it.
  
  I did like that the stories followed a variety of Latin cultures and folklore. I also loved the last chapter - it felt like a full, well-rounded story. I also listened to the audiobook and it was wonderful - there are multiple narrators and they switch off between chapters, which is always fun and made it feel like a different book for each chapter.
• 
  Zuzu

  The premise is so exciting: a short horror story based on Latin American folklore for each Loteria ficha. Although a few of the stories were good, 95% of them were too short to have any substance. The stories were superficial and boring. On top of that, the Spanish in the book was just wrong on many occasions, the worst offender (that almost made me stop reading all together) being "Muñeca, adonde estas las muñeca" - page 270 in the version I bought. I understand that not every Latina speaks Spanish and there's nothing wrong with that, but its embarrassing and almost a little insulting that not a single person who proof read or edited this book even thought to confirm that the Spanish was correct. This one was so incredibly hard to finish and I only did it so I could write a complete review. Do better!
• 
  Kristina

  This edition is a reissue of the author’s original. Budding talent is evident here and I look forward to reading more, later, works. However, the amount of grammatical errors and simple spelling mistakes was frustrating and unacceptable in a revised edition. Also, most of the stories were far too short to make an impact or spark memory. The poetry was much better. Overall, not terrible but not terribly memorable.
• 
  Andy

  It’s hard to rate anthologies! This one had a cool concept, but the stories were just TOO short for me.
• 
  Bret Praxmarer

  I am teaching this collection for the first time and I loved it. My students are really enjoying it as well. Most of my students are first-gen Americans and know many of the legends/myths/fables that act as a basis for many of stories. We are having some great discussions.
  
  One of the things that I LOVED about this book was that it was wildly entertaining as well as provided me the opportunity to learn about another culture. I spent a huge amount of time googling different creatures from the stories and learned a great deal. It was super fun for me.
  
  This book also allows the reader to reflect on why so many of these kinds of stories/fables persist for so long. Many of the legends in the book go back hundreds of years and I kept asking my students why some last so long. It is a chance to understand how important story telling is to humanity.
  
  This was a great collection.
  
  I HIGHLY recommend it.
• 
  Bbecca_marie

  Lotería
  By Cynthia Pelayo
  
  Blurb:
  There are 54 cards in the Lotería game, and for this short story collection you will find one unique story per card based on a Latin American myth, folklore, superstition, or belief—with a slant towards the paranormal and horrific.
  
  ✨My thoughts:
  I was sold based on the title and cover alone! How fun that an anthology is themed by the Mexican board game Lotería. I read this a while ago and I didn’t write a review but it deserves one. I enjoyed each story and I could have used more because there were a few I wish were longer but even still, I loved this collection. There’s 54 short stories jam packed in 335 pages, making this anthology easy to devour. I know short story collections are hard to rate but this one is a good one. This is the first book I’ve read by Cynthia Pelayo and I’m excited to read her 2024 release Forgotten Sisters.
  
  Happy reading 📖 🫀🌴🐟🍉🌙
• 
  kota ⋆｡ﾟ☁︎｡⋆｡ ﾟ☾ ﾟ｡⋆

  really unique -- each of the short stories in this collection is based on a different lotería card with one final chapter to tie them all together under the theme of the traditional (originally italian, then brought to mexico by way of spain and now deeply rooted in mexican culture) card game lotería. the stories ranged from the supernatural to stories about mexican folklore and mythology to just plain eerie. some were scarier than others and some fit the theme of their card more directly and obviously than others, but i thought that the concept was really interesting. as is expected with basically any short story collection, i liked some of the stories more than others, but it was a quick and creepy read that i had a lot of fun with!
• 
  Erwin Letona

  Loteria: while the premise is interesting I can’t recommend the finished product. Some of the stories are decent but too short to have been completely flushed out. Some are so short you know they were just thrown in simply because their card is in the deck. Long or short every single card’s story just ends abruptly so much so that you have to go back and reread or listen to see what you missed. Ironically, the last story (which goes deviates from the formula set up in the rest of the book) and is about the deck/game as a whole is the most compelling story. The book would have been a ton better if it had simply been about the last chapter.
• 
  Lauren

  DNF
• 
  hailey

  obviously some stories were a LOT better than others, but this was so creepy i loved it.
  + the stories were the PERFECT LENGTH
• 
  Michael Allen Rose

  A fantastic collection of short pieces each based on a Loteria card, this collection is fun to read, easy to pick up and put down, and propulsively imaginative.
• 
  Sam Hughes

  I was so grateful to have received a finished copy from an unknown sender days after pub day, which happened to fall on my birthday this year. I will forever recommend this masterpiece to horror readers everywhere. At this point, I'm convinced that Cynthia Pelayo is a genius. This is my first book of hers, but I will be reading more of her work from now on.
  
  Loteria, traditionally known as a card game that involves matching suits and images, has been transformed into a series of 54 short stories detailing the horrors of myths, cryptids, and folklore told throughout all of the Latin American countries, with a twist of course, because this is a horror book. We hear stories about pirates governing treasure caverns, El Chupacabra, ghosts, and hauntings to keep you up for sleepless nights.
  
  Plus, the book's cover art is a dreamboat. I loved everything about this book and can't wait to spread its praises left and right.
• 
  Nat

  Liked this but didn't love it. There are 54 short stories in here (one for each Loteria card) so since the book is only 352 pages you can image each story is pretty short indeed. A lot of them are only a page or two long and while I did mostly enjoy the reading experience, it meant almost none of them were memorable. Also, most of them feel a bit cliche -- not necessarily bad but not particularly original. You can tell where the story is going, because after all it only has 500 words with which to get there. Cool concept but in practice they come off more as a bunch of little snippets than as real short stories.
• 
  Jennifer

  This is a vibrant and glimmering patchwork of stories with heavy folktale influences that is a joy to read. The imagery and language work so well together to give us powerful vignettes and glimpses beyond the veil. The best thing about this collection is, like life, you never know what the cards have in store for you next.
• 
  Bookish Miranda

  3.5
  
  A spooky collection of stories rooted in Latin folklore. Each story is a nod to a specific Lotería card, and an eerie tone is conveyed throughout each tale.
• 
  Helena

  Sooooooooooo f*cking boring!!!!!!!!!! Why would you publish that? Jesus!
• 
  Gwen

  DNF this book is clearly translated and the translation is so bad. If I find it in Spanish I’ll give that a try instead.
• 
  Shyly

  This was riding at 3.5 for a while. The last chapter relating back to numbering sequences bumped it up to a 4 for me. What a collection of stories that all make sense together by the end.
• 
  Hayley Lampert

  This was definitely interesting. I’m fully convinced I’m not smart enough for this book but I did enjoy it and I really liked the ending.