Into the Beautiful North Audiobook By Luis Alberto Urrea cover art

Into the Beautiful North

A Novel

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Into the Beautiful North

By: Luis Alberto Urrea
Narrated by: Susan Ericksen
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Nineteen-year-old Nayeli works at a taco shop in her Mexican village and dreams about her father, who journeyed to the US to find work. Recently it has dawned on her that he isn't the only man who has left town. In fact there are almost no men in the village - they've all gone north. While watching The Magnificent Seven, Nayeli decides to go north herself and recruit seven men - her own "Siete Magníficos" - to repopulate her hometown and protect it from the bandidos who plan on taking it over.

Filled with unforgettable characters and prose as radiant as the Sinaloan sun, Into the Beautiful North is the story of an irresistible young woman's quest to find herself on both sides of the fence.

©2009 Luis Alberto Urrea (P)2016 Hachette Audio Coming of Age Fiction Genre Fiction Historical Fiction Latino American Literary Fiction Literature & Fiction United States Women's Fiction World Literature Village
Beautiful Story • Captivating Narrative • Unique Heroes • Authentic Setting • Improving Performance
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This books takes place in Mexico and contains a number of Spanish-language words and specifically Mexican phrases. The non-Spanish speaker would have no trouble understanding them, but Urrea has obviously included them to establish the authenticity of the setting and the Mexican characters. Sadly, it is obvious that the reader is not bilingual and has not made an effort to learn even the most basic principles of pronunciation in Spanish. (In fact, I think she even substituted the work "sneeze" for "snooze" in the bust-driver's story, but I haven't checked the printed text.) If you don't know Spanish, her reading will not be a problem for you, but if you care about spoken language, you will find it grating. It does the very opposite of establishing the authenticity Urrea aims for. What is especially disappointing ts that the company which hired the reader did not find someone truly bilingual who would have honored the the story and the Spanish language.

The reader is very disappointing

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Good book lots of insight in to the Experience of crossing the border into the US.

Good book

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Great story but reader mispronounced Spanish and Spanish slang. It was like hearing a chalkboard being scratched. Despite that I could not stop listening as I had to find out what happened.

Beautiful story! I wish I would’ve bought book.

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I love this author but what happened with the narrator choice? If it would of be any other book this narrator would of be fantastic but alas her Spanish was lacking.

Where are the bilingual narrators at?

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I think this narration is the best I’ve heard of almost any book I’ve listened to on Audible. The story, the writing, all of it was mesmerizing. It will be my choice for my book group next year.

Outstanding Narration

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after listening to the house of broken angels and the narration by the author which I gave a five-star review both for the book and the narration, I was truly disappointed by this narration the pronunciation was incorrect the emphasis on the wrong syllables I believe that for this type of excellent writing reading it would probably have been better as I would have understood the Spanish.

disappointed

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The reader should have been a native Spanish speaker. Mispronounced common words and place names throughout were distracting and pretty inexcusable. Spanish speakers always pronounce their vowels purely. Urrea's Hummingbird's Daughter is a better book.

😒

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I loved the book. Very well written and provides us with characters that are proud of their home. Pleasantly different.
The narrator delivered poorly because of awful pronunciations. I had to open the book at times to understand what she was trying to say.

Awful narrator, but beautiful story.

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Story was wonderful, I was just put off by the reader’s incorrect pronunciations and accent when reading Spanish words or phrases.

Surely there are Latino/Hispanic readers you can use.

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So bad it was distracting. I found the story intriguing but felt having a non-Spanish speaker read it was an insult to writer and readers alike.

Terrrible Spanish pronunciation!

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