The Mexican board game of Lotería is a game of chance. It is similar to our American bingo. However, in Loteria instead of matching up numbers on a game board, players match up images.
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. In this deck of cards you will find murderers, ghosts, goblins and ghouls. This collection features creatures and monsters, vampires and werewolves and many of these legends existed in the Americas long before their European counterparts.
Many of these stories have been passed over time throughout the Americas, and many have been passed via word of mouth, just like the tales the Brothers Grimm collected. These are indeed fairy tales, but with a much more terrible little slant. Published by Burial Day Books. (From Amazon)
Cynthia Pelayo is a Bram Stoker Award winning and International Latino Book Award winning author and poet.
Pelayo writes fairy tales that blend genre and explore concepts of grief, mourning, and cycles of violence. She is the author of Loteria, Santa Muerte, The Missing, Poems of My Night, Into the Forest and All the Way Through, Children of Chicago, Crime Scene, The Shoemaker’s Magician, as well as dozens of standalone short stories and poems.
Loteria, which was her MFA in Writing thesis at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago, was re-released to praise with Esquire calling it one of the ‘Best Horror Books of 2023.’ Santa Muerte and The Missing, her young adult horror novels were each nominated for International Latino Book Awards. Poems of My Night was nominated for an Elgin Award. Into the Forest and All the Way Through was nominated for an Elgin Award and was also nominated for a Bram Stoker Award for Superior Achievement in a Poetry Collection. Children of Chicago was nominated for a Bram Stoker Award in Superior Achievement in a Novel and won an International Latino Book Award for Best Mystery. Crime Scene won the Bram Stoker Award for Superior Achievement in a Poetry Collection. The Shoemaker’s Magician has been released to praise with Library Journal awarding it a starred review.
Her forthcoming novel, The Forgotten Sisters, will be released by Thomas and Mercer in 2024 and is an adaptation of Hans Christian Andersen’s “The Little Mermaid.”
Her works have been reviewed in The New York Times, Chicago Tribune, LA Review of Books, and more.
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.
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.
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.
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...
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
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. It's 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 hard to finish
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
2.5, cool concept but trying to fit 54 short stories into a 350 page book leaves stories feeling at best underdeveloped and at worst like bad 2 sentence reddit horror stories
In the beginning I was interested in this, but as I read more and more I felt like I was struggling so hard to get through it. The concept is awesome and a lot of the stories I read I liked and thought were creepy. But 54 short stories starts to be overwhelming. Overall, 3 stars
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.
really cool concept and found the writing style interesting enough for me to keep reading. the ending was the best part imo and really ties things together. this book makes me want to look more into latin american history and culture
the premise of this book was interesting: a flash fiction for each card of the mexican board game lotería. it was really cool how pelayo utilized the legends and cultures of not only multiple latin american countries but also those of spain, palestine, russia and japan to name a few.
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.
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!
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.
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.
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.
Growing up, we played loteria in my Abuelas house, using dry beans as placeholders in the spots and betting pesos while we joked around and had a good time. Along with that, often came times when we sat around and listened to our elders tell spooky stories of their past or things they've heard from another family member or friend of a friend. Stories like a drunk uncle walking home only to meet a black dog that stood on its hind legs telling him he was the devil. Or the many times we got spooked into not wandering off while playing outside because of La Llorona, the weeping woman, or El Viejo del costal, the guy with the sack, that was the boogieman that would snatched you up and steal you never to be heard from again. Stories from my childhood. Of my culture. This book gave me that exhilarating dose of nostalgia I didn't know I needed so badly.
This was a breath of fresh air, reading story after story, reminiscing of my past and some of the favorite pastimes of most Latinos I know, the spooky tales from our towns and cities.
You get stories ranging from El Chupacabras, the goad sucker monster, to the scariest ones that are closer to being a cautionary tale of trusting strangers, to haunted doll houses and many more stories! I enjoyed all the stories, although I loved some more than others, this was still a damn good book!
I want to thank The Tobias Literary Agency for gifting me a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review! This was such a fun book!
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.
The concept of basing this book on Lotería is fascinating, and as an experiment, it’s compelling, even if not entirely successful. Some stories were so brief that it was difficult to see their purpose or feel their impact, and at times the connection between the card’s image and the story wasn’t clear.
That said, several of the longer stories were truly outstanding: compelling, heartbreaking, and haunting. The writing overall is strong, with moments of powerful social commentary and surprising turns. I especially appreciated the inclusion of myths and superstitions from across Latin America, as well as the diverse perspectives represented, stories featuring Japanese-Brazilian characters, people of Palestinian descent in Latin America, Latine Muslim characters, and more.
My favorite stories were The Moon, The Heart, and The Canoe.