
The Waves Take You Home
A Novel
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Narrated by:
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Krysta Gonzales
About this listen
In this heartfelt story about how the places we run from hold the answers to our deepest challenges, the death of her grandmother brings a young woman home, where she must face the past in order to become the heir of not just the family restaurant, but her own destiny.
Violeta Sanoguera had always done what she was told. She left the man she loved in Colombia in pursuit of a better life for herself and because her mother and grandmother didn’t approve of him. Chasing dreams of education and art in New York City, and with a new love, twenty-eight-year-old Violeta establishes a new life for herself, on her terms. But when her grandmother suddenly dies, everything changes.
After years of being on her own in NYC, Violeta finds herself on a plane back to Colombia, accompanied at all times by the ghost of her grandmother who is sending her messages and signs, to find she is the heir of the failing family restaurant, the very one Abuela told her to run from in the first place. The journey leads her to rediscover her home, her grandmother, and even the flame of an old love.
©2024 María Alejandra Barrios Vélez (P)2024 Brilliance Publishing, Inc., all rights reserved.Listeners also enjoyed...
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Critic reviews
“Barrios Veléz offers a heartfelt and deeply personal debut novel…The Waves Take You Home is a beautiful homage to the values, traditions, and way of life of a small town and its families in Colombia.” —Booklist
“Foodies will delight in the mouthwatering details of paella, pineapple upside-down rum cake, caramel flan, and sweet red wine in a charming novel.” —Library Journal
“A deftly crafted and compelling read from start to finish…” —Midwest Book Review
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Story
Prieta is a term of endearment. When I tell people who don’t speak Spanish what prieta means—dark or the dark one—their eyes pop open and a small gasp escapes. I see the offense they feel for me sprinkled on their faces like the freckles I will never have. How do I tell them that when I heard Ita say Prieta, I felt the caress of her strong hands on the top of my head as she braided my hair?
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Being Mexican American and not fitting in.
- By bookdeals on 12-31-24
By: Yasmín Ramírez
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Too Soon for Adiós
- By: Annette Chavez Macias
- Narrated by: Luzma Ortiz
- Length: 9 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
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No one expects to meet their father at their mother’s funeral. But for Gabby Medina, that’s exactly what happens. Her dad abandoned her when she was a baby, and now he’s back. And he wants to give her a house. Gabby doesn’t want the house—or him. But she could use the money. So Gabby agrees to take it under two conditions: First, she can sell the house whenever she wants. Second, accepting it doesn’t mean she accepts him.
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relatable
- By Jessica on 04-23-23
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When We Were Widows
- A Novel
- By: Annette Chavez Macias
- Narrated by: Karla Serrato, Cynthia Farrell
- Length: 8 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
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Since her husband’s death six months ago, Yesica Diaz-Taylor seems to be taking her grief in stride. Then an angry outburst at work shatters the illusion. Her mandated support group counseling doesn’t help much. Yesica has always kept her feelings close, so even when an unlikely friendship blossoms with the group’s facilitator, she still has reasons for holding back. She’s just not ready to share.
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Enjoyed the story though I felt the cultural aspects were somewhat overblown!
- By Reading Grandma on 11-08-24
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Big Chicas Don't Cry
- By: Annette Chavez Macias
- Narrated by: Vanessa Vasquez, Alessandra Manon, Aida Reluzco, and others
- Length: 10 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
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Cousins Mari, Erica, Selena, and Gracie are inseparable. They aren’t just family but best friends—sharing secrets, traditions, and a fierce love for their abuelita. But their idyllic childhood ends when Mari’s parents divorce, forcing her to move away. With Mari gone, the girls’ tight-knit bond unravels.
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Painfully boring..
- By Monica Serrano on 09-24-22
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Chingona
- Owning Your Inner Badass for Healing and Justice
- By: Alma Zaragoza-Petty
- Narrated by: Alma Zaragoza-Petty
- Length: 4 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
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In Chingona, Mexican American activist, scholar, and podcast host Alma Zaragoza-Petty helps us claim our inner chingona, a Spanish term for "badass woman." Working for change while preserving her spirit, a chingona repurposes her pain for the good of the world. She may even learn that she belongs to a long line of chingonas who came before her—unruly women who used their persevering energy to survive and thrive.
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Inspiring
- By alex on 02-28-25
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Clap When You Land
- By: Elizabeth Acevedo
- Narrated by: Elizabeth Acevedo, Melania-Luisa Marte
- Length: 5 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
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In a novel-in-verse that brims with grief and love, National Book Award-winning and New York Times best-selling author Elizabeth Acevedo writes about the devastation of loss, the difficulty of forgiveness, and the bittersweet bonds that shape our lives.
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Narration
- By VB on 06-05-20
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¡Ándale, Prieta!
- A Love Letter to My Family
- By: Yasmín Ramírez
- Narrated by: Kim Ramirez
- Length: 7 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
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Performance
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Story
Prieta is a term of endearment. When I tell people who don’t speak Spanish what prieta means—dark or the dark one—their eyes pop open and a small gasp escapes. I see the offense they feel for me sprinkled on their faces like the freckles I will never have. How do I tell them that when I heard Ita say Prieta, I felt the caress of her strong hands on the top of my head as she braided my hair?
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Being Mexican American and not fitting in.
- By bookdeals on 12-31-24
By: Yasmín Ramírez
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Family Lore
- A Novel
- By: Elizabeth Acevedo
- Narrated by: Elizabeth Acevedo, Sixta Morel, Danyeli Rodriguez del Orbe
- Length: 9 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
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Flor has a gift: she can predict, to the day, when someone will die. So when she decides she wants a living wake—a party to bring her family and community together to celebrate the long life she’s led—her sisters are surprised. Has Flor foreseen her own death, or someone else’s? Does she have other motives? She refuses to tell her sisters, Matilde, Pastora, and Camila.
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Underwhelming.
- By Karina on 09-18-23
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Crying in the Bathroom
- A Memoir
- By: Erika L. Sánchez
- Narrated by: Erika L. Sánchez
- Length: 7 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
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Growing up as the daughter of Mexican immigrants in Chicago in the nineties, Erika Sánchez was a self-described pariah, misfit, and disappointment—a foul-mouthed, melancholic rabble-rouser who painted her nails black but also loved comedy, often laughing so hard with her friends that she had to leave her school classroom. Twenty-five years later, she’s now an award-winning novelist, poet, and essayist, but she’s still got an irrepressible laugh, an acerbic wit, and singular powers of perception about the world around her.
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I cried
- By Veronica Castellanos on 08-13-23
By: Erika L. Sánchez
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Self-Care for Latinas
- 100+ Ways to Prioritize & Rejuvenate Your Mind, Body, & Spirit
- By: Raquel Reichard
- Narrated by: Asatta Jones
- Length: 4 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
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Between micro- and macro-aggressions at school, the workplace, and even the grocery store, a constant news cycle highlighting Latine trauma, and a general lack of resources for women of color, it’s tough to be a Latina woman and prioritize your wellness, both physically and mentally. With Self-Care for Latinas, you’ll find more than 100 exercises to radically choose to put yourself first. Whether you need a quick pick-me-up in the middle of the day, you’re working through feelings of burnout, or you need to process a microaggression, this book is for you.
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Amazing
- By Iliana on 12-19-24
By: Raquel Reichard
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The Haunting of Alejandra
- A Novel by V. Castro
- By: V. Castro
- Narrated by: Raquel Beattie
- Length: 10 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
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Alejandra no longer knows who she is. To her husband, she is a wife, and to her children, a mother. To her own adoptive mother, she is a daughter. But they cannot see who Alejandra has become: a woman struggling with a darkness that threatens to consume her. Nor can they see what Alejandra sees. In times of despair, a ghostly vision appears to her, the apparition of a crying woman in a ragged white gown.
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Must Read For Any Struggling Mother
- By alymac27 on 05-17-23
By: V. Castro
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Fat Chance, Charlie Vega
- By: Crystal Maldonado
- Narrated by: Carla Vega
- Length: 11 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
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Charlie Vega is a lot of things. Smart. Funny. Artistic. Ambitious. Fat. People sometimes have a problem with that last one. Especially her mom. Charlie wants a good relationship with her body, but it's hard, and her mom leaving a billion weight loss shakes on her dresser doesn't help. The world and everyone in it have ideas about what she should look like: thinner, lighter, slimmer-faced, straighter-haired. Be smaller. Be whiter. Be quieter. But there's one person who's always in Charlie's corner: her best friend Amelia.
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Loved it.
- By Amazon Customer on 05-31-21
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Malas
- A Novel
- By: Marcela Fuentes
- Narrated by: Christine Avila, Victoria Villarreal
- Length: 12 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
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In 1951, a mysterious old woman confronts Pilar Aguirre in the small border town of La Cienega, Texas. The old woman is sure Pilar stole her husband and, in a heated outburst, lays a curse on Pilar and her family. More than forty years later, Lulu Muñoz is dodging chaos at every turn: her troubled father’s moods, his rules, her secret life as singer in a punk band, but most of all her upcoming quinceañera. When her beloved grandmother passes away, Lulu finds herself drawn to the glamorous stranger who crashed the funeral and who lives alone and shunned on the edge of town.
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Hispanic culture
- By lesliebriones04 on 03-05-25
By: Marcela Fuentes
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Tías and Primas
- On Knowing and Loving the Women Who Raise Us
- By: Prisca Dorcas Mojica Rodríguez, Josie Del Castillo - illustrator
- Narrated by: Prisca Dorcas Mojica Rodríguez
- Length: 7 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
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Born into a large, close-knit family in Nicaragua, Prisca Dorcas Mojica Rodríguez grew up surrounded by strong, kind, funny, sensitive, resilient, judgmental, messy, beautiful women. Whether blood relatives or chosen family, these tías and primas fundamentally shaped her view of the world—and so did the labels that were used to talk about them. The tía loca who is shunned for defying gender roles. The pretty prima put on a pedestal for her European features. The matriarch who is the core of her community but hides all her pain.
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Relatable
- By Gabriela Ortiz on 03-13-25
By: Prisca Dorcas Mojica Rodríguez, and others
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Malinalli
- A Novel
- By: Veronica Chapa
- Narrated by: Cynthia Farrell
- Length: 12 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
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A real-life historical figure, the woman known as Malinalli, Malintzin, La Malinche, Doña Marina, and Malinalxochitl was the Nahua interpreter who helped Spanish conquistador Hernán Cortés communicate with the native people of Mexico. When indigenous leaders observed her marching into their cities, they believed she was a goddess—blessed with the divine power to interpret the Spaniards’ intentions for their land. Later, historians and pop culture would deem her a traitor—the “Indian” girl who helped sell Mexico’s future to an invader.
By: Veronica Chapa
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Badass Bonita
- Break the Silence, Become a Revolution, Unearth Your Inner Guerrera
- By: Kim Guerra
- Narrated by: Kim Guerra
- Length: 6 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
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Almost every Latina has heard the phrase calladita te ves más bonita—you look most beautiful when you are silent. It's a message rooted in machismo passed from generation to generation, and one that poet and Latine therapist, Kim Guerra, grew up on. In Badass Bonita, Guerra tells a story of coming into her own power, and guides listeners through the process of finding their own. Rejecting what she was taught as a girl, she learned to use her voice and the more she listened to that inner niña, the more she unearthed her inner guerrera.
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A girl working on getting her wings
- By Grettel Temple on 03-17-25
By: Kim Guerra
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An American Immigrant
- A Novel
- By: Johanna Rojas Vann
- Narrated by: Allison Strong
- Length: 9 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
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A Colombian American journalist tries to save her career by taking an assignment somewhere she never thought she’d go—Colombia—in this heartwarming debut novel about rediscovering our family stories.
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Boring!
- By BecGie on 03-21-25
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The Witches of El Paso
- A Novel
- By: Luis Jaramillo
- Narrated by: Raquel Beattie
- Length: 9 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
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In the present day, Nena’s grandniece, Marta, balances a struggling legal aid practice with motherhood and the care of the now ninety-three-year-old Nena. When Marta agrees to help search for a daughter Nena left in the past, the two forge a fierce connection. Marta’s own supernatural powers emerge, awakening her to new possibilities that threaten the life she has constructed.
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Beautiful
- By Jenna Rae Waldo on 03-26-25
By: Luis Jaramillo
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For Brown Girls with Sharp Edges and Tender Hearts
- A Love Letter to Women of Color
- By: Prisca Dorcas Mojica Rodríguez
- Narrated by: Prisca Dorcas Mojica Rodríguez
- Length: 9 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
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The founder of Latina Rebels and a “Latinx Activist You Should Know” (Teen Vogue) arms women of color with the tools and knowledge they need to find success on their own terms.
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Must Read for BIWOC
- By Veronica Garcia on 09-24-21
What listeners say about The Waves Take You Home
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Pamela Ann Plumer
- 05-26-24
Gripping hear felt listen!
What an absolutely amazing novel of family ties and deep love and knowing where you come come from. This definitely will not be my last novel by this very talented writer! 😍
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- Anonymous User
- 03-29-24
A beautiful adventure
The Waves That Take You Home is a fantastic and lovely adventure that I found impossible to stop listening to. It chronicles the life and self discovery of Vi, a universally relatable character who bravely faces the lifelong debates we all go through. How dreams of our parents become our own, how their values become ours, and how we discover and pursue our own dreams while struggling to stay true to the values we came from.
Anyone lucky enough to come upon this book will see the through the eyes of likeable young first generation immigrant who travels from the beaches of Colombia to the bustle of NYC and back. Vi's character and emotions are written with great depth that it would seem could only be written by someone who has lived her adventure. Beautifully written in a light fast paced fun voice while grappling with profound truths and emotion.
Barrios is a rare talent to create a fun yet meaningful vacation book that inspires reflection long after it's over. Also helps that the reader is great, perfectly brings Barrios's characters to life. Listen to this book, you won't regret it.
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- Frank
- 05-04-24
I enjoyed the performance. The actress who read the book did a fantastic job of voicing all the different characters.
The story was sweet and the start of it really drew me in. Overall, I enjoyed the book but in the later chapters, the story got repetitive and predictable losing the freshness and fun from the early chapters. And sadly, the main character, Vi, became a bit insufferable with some of her decisions.
SPOILER: ………
…….
I wish Vi would have ended up alone. The constant need to go back to her first love, Rafa, made her other decisions seem like they didn’t really matter to her. She had success and was in a healthy relationship with Liam but she struggled cause he didn’t understand her love for her grandmother’s restaurant. Of course, he didn't understand it, Vi never took a moment to explain it to him. Sure, at times she tried but when he would ask her questions about it and say, “I don’t understand, please tell me,” she would t. I wish she did cause Liam loved her and wanted to look towards the future yet she wanted to stay in the past with Rafa.
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- Dolores Vega
- 01-10-25
Amor Antes Que Miedo 😭🫶🏽
Beautiful story! So well read, it gave me chills. Survival, love, new beginnings, grief. So many layers.
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- DS
- 03-30-24
Repetitive
The protagonist’s constant indecision annoying. The story was too repetitive and the outcome predictable. I would have rather more depth into the grandmother’s life. She was the most interesting character in the story.
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