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. Each book review will be followed by a brief history of Halloween. 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.
A Brief History of Halloween
October is my absolute favorite month of the year for one reason: Halloween! From ancient traditions of honoring the dead to modern-day celebrations of all things horror, Halloween is a time to appreciate mortality, the supernatural, and the macabre. Let’s take a look at the origins of this holiday.
A Quick Definition of Terms
Many use the terms “Celtic” and “Gaelic” interchangeably, but Celtic and Gaelic are not one and the same. The Celtic people (or Celts) include Indo-European communities spanning from western Europe to Anatolia (located in modern-day Turkey). The pronunciation of the word Celtic matters. If you say Celtic with a “k” sound at the beginning (“kell-tick”), you are referring to the groups of Indo-European peoples. If you say Celtics with an “s” sound at the beginning (“sell-ticks”), you are referring to the professional basketball team based in Boston, Massachusetts, in the United States. The specific Celtic community discussed in this post are the Gaels. The Gaels are an ethnolinguistic group of Celtic people in Ireland, Scotland, and the Isle of Man who speak the Gaelic languages. In short, the Celts are a people and Gaelic is a language spoken by some Celtic peoples.
Samhain, the Celtic New Year & Harvest Festival
Samhain (pronounced “saw-win”) is an annual celebration held by the Celtic peoples of Ireland, Scotland, and the Isle of Man to signal the end of the harvest season and the first day of winter. Similar celebrations are held by many other Celtic peoples in Wales and western mainland Europe. Samhain is referenced in the earliest recorded pieces of Irish literature, dating to the 8th Century, and is identified as one of the most important events in Irish mythology. A version of the tale of Tochmarc Emire (“The Wooing of Emer”) written in the 10th Century identifies Samhain as the first of four festivals to mark the seasons of the year. Celtic peoples who celebrated Samhain would make bonfires, gives sacrifices, and practice divination using apples and nuts to predict the events of the upcoming year.
For the Celts, Samhain was a time when the boundaries between the world of the living and the Otherworld (where spirits and the dead remained) became blurred. This liminal time allowed aos sí (spirits and fairies, pronounced “eess shee”) to cross into the world of the living and move among us. Once crossed over, aos sí would wonder the world of the living, with the spirits of deceased people visiting their living family in search of hospitality. Celtic people would leave food and drink outside their doors as offerings to the wandering aos sí in exchange for good luck and greater chances of surviving the upcoming winter. Not leaving offerings for aos sí could incur their spite and cause bad luck for people and livestock alike.
Allhallowtide, the Christian Season of the Dead
By the 19th Century and early 20th Century, European scholars of anthropology recognized the connection between the Celtic and Christian roots of Halloween. These scholars noted that many cultures in Europe and Southeast Asia combined celebrations for the dead with what those cultures recognized to be the New Year. But there was an undeniably direct line between the Celtic tradition of Samhain and the Christian season of Allhallowtide, both celebrated at the same time of the year to honor the dead.
Christian monks stationed in England in the early 8th Century observed the Celtic tradition that honored the dead and celebrated the New Year at the end of every October. And celebrations that resembled Samhain were observed by Christians as far south as France. By the 9th Century, Pope Gregory IV urged Catholic leaders in western Europe to establish All Saints’ Day on 1 November and All Souls’ Day on 2 November in an apparent (albeit still contested) attempt to erase Samhain and all similar Celtic traditions in the region. The Christian triduum known as Allhallowtide is what came out of these alleged eradication efforts with All Hallows’ Eve (or Halloween) celebrated on 31 October, All Hallows’ Day (or All Saints’ Day) celebrated on 1 November, and All Souls’ Day celebrated on 2 November.
But the deeply rooted Celtic tradition of Samhain would not easily be removed. Up to the 19th Century in Ireland and the Isle of Man, many Gaelic-speaking communities still recognized Samhain as the time to honor the dead and bring in the New Year. Today, many Celtic communities as well as practicing Wiccans continue to keep the tradition of Samhain alive and well. The Mexican tradition of Día de los Muertos (Day of the Dead) is also celebrated during 1-2 November, possibly taking influence from Allhallowtide.
Halloween in American Popular Culture
The tradition of celebrating Halloween became widespread in the United States by the 19th Century with the mass immigration of Irish and Scottish populations to the country. By the early 20th Century, Halloween became adopted by Americans of all races and religions and has since spread to countries and communities around the world. Today, Halloween is widely recognized as “spooky season.” It is the time of year when film and literary genres of horror, suspense, and the supernatural are put on full display and enjoyed by their devoted fans around the world.
The traditional Celtic practices of Samhain do not look very different today than they did over a thousand years ago. The Samhain practice of leaving food and drink outside your door for wandering spirits turned into leaving candy for wandering trick-or-treaters. The divination practice of using apples and nuts to predict what the upcoming year had in store turned into bobbing for apples. Irish Catholic folktales like that of Jack-o’-lantern and Stingy Jack became tied to the celebration of Halloween and are signaled by carving faces into hallowed out pumpkins to ward off spirits. And the 16th-century practice of dressing in disguise to either impersonate a wandering spirit or cause mischief if you were unwelcomed turned into wearing costumes and trick-or-treating.
Closing Thoughts
An annual Celtic tradition known as Samhain honoring the dead and celebrating the New Year was practiced by Gaelic-speaking people in Ireland, Scotland, and the Isle of Man from the end of October to the beginning of November. For centuries, the Roman Catholic church allegedly attempted to eradicate this celebration before eventually Christianizing it. The Christianization of this Celtic tradition laid the social foundation for what would become Halloween. Today, Halloween is widely recognized and celebrated by people of all races and religions around the world.
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
