
Catalina
A Novel
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Narrated by:
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Karla Cornejo Villavicencio
About this listen
NATIONAL BESTSELLER • LONGLISTED FOR THE NATIONAL BOOK AWARD • A year in the life of the unforgettable Catalina Ituralde, a wickedly wry and heartbreakingly vulnerable student at an elite college, forced to navigate an opaque past, an uncertain future, tragedies on two continents, and the tantalizing possibilities of love and freedom
“[A] sparkling fiction debut.”—The New York Times Book Review
“[A] fresh and unflinching take on the campus novel.”—People (Ten Best Books of the Year)
“Diabolically charming and magnetic.”—Ira Glass
A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR: Time, The Washington Post, NPR, The Boston Globe, them
When Catalina is admitted to Harvard, it feels like the fulfillment of destiny: a miracle child escapes death in Latin America, moves to Queens to be raised by her undocumented grandparents, and becomes one of the chosen. But nothing is simple for Catalina, least of all her own complicated, contradictory, ruthlessly probing mind. Now a senior, she faces graduation to a world that has no place for the undocumented; her sense of doom intensifies her curiosities and desires. She infiltrates the school’s elite subcultures—internships and literary journals, posh parties and secret societies—which she observes with the eye of an anthropologist and an interloper’s skepticism: she is both fascinated and repulsed. Craving a great romance, Catalina finds herself drawn to a fellow student, an actual budding anthropologist eager to teach her about the Latin American world she was born into but never knew, even as her life back in Queens begins to unravel. And every day, the clock ticks closer to the abyss of life after graduation. Can she save her family? Can she save herself? What does it mean to be saved?
Brash and daring, part campus novel, part hagiography, part pop song, Catalina is unlike any coming-of-age novel you’ve ever read—and Catalina, bright and tragic, circled by a nimbus of chaotic energy, driven by a wild heart, is a character you will never forget.
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Critic reviews
“[A] sparkling fiction debut . . . Cornejo Villavicencio’s prose seduces her readers. . . . With this story and character, Cornejo Villavicencio asks: Who’s the real meritocrat at Harvard, where corporate scions and children of celebrities rule? Students like Catalina don’t sit at the table, Cornejo Villavicencio suggests, until they do. The author’s voice is strong but the social critique is stronger. . . . Through this story line, Cornejo Villavicencio revisits themes she covered in her nonfiction work, the National Book Award finalist The Undocumented Americans, but here, in Catalina, she enlarges her canvas, luxuriating in the freedom found in fiction. This talky, shrewd, irresistible protagonist deepens our understanding of how small slights and epic challenges mold an immigrant’s life.”—The New York Times Book Review
“Karla Cornejo Villavicencio’s debut work of fiction captures the paradox of immigrant identity in the United States. . . . Cornejo Villavicencio’s fluid, digressive prose shines brightest when Catalina’s theatrical self-presentation takes center stage. . . . Cornejo Villavicencio delivers irrefutable proof that, when it comes to depicting courtship, she is a worthy student of Gabriel García Márquez.”—The Atlantic
“[A] fresh and unflinching take on the campus novel.”—People
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- By: Chloe Benjamin
- Narrated by: Maggie Hoffman
- Length: 11 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
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It's 1969 in New York City's Lower East Side, and word has spread of the arrival of a mystical woman, a traveling psychic who claims to be able to tell anyone the day they will die. The Gold children - four adolescents on the cusp of self-awareness - sneak out to hear their fortunes, A sweeping novel of remarkable ambition and depth, The Immortalists probes the line between destiny and choice, reality and illusion, this world and the next. It is a deeply moving testament to the power of story, the nature of belief, and the unrelenting pull of familial bonds.
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Warning to animal lovers
- By Sarah on 02-02-18
By: Chloe Benjamin
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Cackle
- By: Rachel Harrison
- Narrated by: Dylan Moore
- Length: 10 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
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All her life, Annie has played it nice and safe. After being unceremoniously dumped by her longtime boyfriend, Annie seeks a fresh start. She accepts a teaching position that moves her from Manhattan to a small village upstate. She’s stunned by how perfect and picturesque the town is. The people are all friendly and warm. Her new apartment is dreamy too, minus the oddly persistent spider infestation. Then Annie meets Sophie. Beautiful, charming, magnetic Sophie, who takes a special interest in Annie, who wants to be her friend.
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Enjoyed it so much, I bought it twice.
- By Shayla Williams on 10-08-21
By: Rachel Harrison
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The Inheritance of Orquídea Divina
- A Novel
- By: Zoraida Córdova
- Narrated by: Frankie Corzo
- Length: 10 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
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The Montoyas are used to a life without explanations. They know better than to ask why the pantry never seems to run low, or why their matriarch won’t ever leave their home in Four Rivers - not for graduations, weddings, or baptisms. But when Orquídea Divina invites them to her funeral and to collect their inheritance, they hope to learn the secrets that she has held onto so tightly their whole lives. Instead, Orquídea is transformed into a ceiba tree, leaving them with more questions than answers.
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Magical Realism Weirdness
- By @abagoflit on 09-08-21
By: Zoraida Córdova
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The Seventh Veil of Salome
- By: Silvia Moreno-Garcia
- Narrated by: Caitlin Kelly, Atlanta Amado, Victoria Villarreal, and others
- Length: 11 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
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1950s Hollywood: Every actress wants to play Salome, the star-making role in a big-budget movie about the legendary woman whose story has inspired artists since ancient times. So when the film’s mercurial director casts Vera Larios, an unknown Mexican ingenue, in the lead role, she quickly becomes the talk of the town. Vera also becomes an object of envy for Nancy Hartley, a bit player whose career has stalled, and who will do anything to win the fame she believes she richly deserves.
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Well-told story, fantastic narration
- By A. Hernandez on 09-01-24
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Mina's Matchbox
- A Novel
- By: Yoko Ogawa, Stephen B. Snyder - translator
- Narrated by: Nanako Mizushima
- Length: 8 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
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In the spring of 1972, twelve-year-old Tomoko leaves her mother behind in Tokyo and boards a train alone for Ashiya, a coastal town in Japan, to stay with her aunt’s family. Tomoko’s aunt is an enigma and an outlier in her working-class family, and her magnificent home—and handsome foreign husband, the president of a soft drink company—are symbols of that status. The seventeen rooms are filled with German-made furnishings; there are sprawling gardens and even an old zoo where the family’s pygmy hippopotamus resides.
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Very Enjoyable
- By unco on 09-03-24
By: Yoko Ogawa, and others
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The Rich People Have Gone Away
- A Novel
- By: Regina Porter
- Narrated by: William DeMeritt, Shayna Small
- Length: 9 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
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Brooklyn, 2020. Theo Harper and his pregnant wife, Darla, head upstate to their summer cottage to wait out the lockdown. Not everyone in their upscale Park Slope building has this privilege: not Xavier, the teenager in the Cardi B T-shirt, nor Darla’s best friend, Ruby, and her partner, Katsumi, who stay behind to save their Michelin-starred restaurant. During an upstate hike on the aptly named Devil’s Path, Theo divulges a long-held secret—and when Darla disappears after the ensuing argument, he finds himself the prime suspect.
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descriptions of food
- By Lilly Daniel on 08-16-24
By: Regina Porter
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Flights
- By: Olga Tokarczuk, Jennifer Croft - translator
- Narrated by: Julia Whelan
- Length: 12 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
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Chopin's heart is carried back to Warsaw in secret by his adoring sister. A woman must return to her native Poland in order to poison her terminally ill high school sweetheart, and a young man slowly descends into madness when his wife and child mysteriously vanish during a vacation and just as suddenly reappear. Through these brilliantly imagined characters and stories, interwoven with haunting, playful, and revelatory meditations, Flights explores what it means to be a traveler, a wanderer, a body in motion not only through space but through time.
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Curious and beautifully written
- By Alejandra on 10-24-18
By: Olga Tokarczuk, and others
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The Bandit Queens
- A Novel
- By: Parini Shroff
- Narrated by: Soneela Nankani
- Length: 13 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
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Five years ago, Geeta lost her no-good husband. As in, she actually lost him—he walked out on her and she has no idea where he is. But in her remote village in India, rumor has it that Geeta killed him. And it’s a rumor that just won’t die.
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Not great
- By Brandy T on 01-09-23
By: Parini Shroff
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Loneliness & Company
- By: Charlee Dyroff
- Narrated by: Annalyse McCoy
- Length: 9 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
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Lee knows she’s the best. A professor favorite and fellowship winner, there’s no doubt she’ll land one of the coveted jobs at a Big Five corporation. So when, upon graduating, Lee is instead assigned to an unknown company in the dead city of New York, her life goals are completely upended. In this new role, Lee’s task is to gather enough research to train an AI how to be a friend. She begins online and by studying the social circle of her clueless, outgoing roommate Veronika.
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Hang in there a bit if you're tempted to DNF
- By NMwritergal on 09-21-24
By: Charlee Dyroff
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The Instrumentalist
- By: Harriet Constable
- Narrated by: Emilia Clarke
- Length: 10 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
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Anna Maria has only known life inside the Pietà, an orphanage for children born of prostitutes. But the girls of the Pietà are lucky in a sense: most babies born of their station were drowned in the city’s canals. And despite the strict rules, the girls are given singing and music lessons from an early age. The most promising musicians have the chance to escape the fate of the rest: forced marriage to anyone who will have them.
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Republic of Music
- By D N Wolfe on 09-19-24
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Greenwood
- A Novel
- By: Michael Christie
- Narrated by: Kimberly Farr
- Length: 18 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
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It's 2038 and Jacinda (Jake) Greenwood is a storyteller and a liar, an overqualified tour guide babysitting ultra-rich vacationers in one of the world's last remaining forests. It's 2008 and Liam Greenwood is a carpenter, sprawled on his back after a workplace fall, calling out from the concrete floor of an empty mansion. It's 1974 and Willow Greenwood is out of jail, free after being locked up for one of her endless series of environmental protests: attempts at atonement for the sins of her father's once vast and violent timber empire.
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tedious boring trite
- By Marc Buchalter on 11-19-21
By: Michael Christie
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Behold the Dreamers
- A Novel
- By: Imbolo Mbue
- Narrated by: Prentice Onayemi
- Length: 12 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
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Jende Jonga, a Cameroonian immigrant living in Harlem, has come to the United States to provide a better life for himself; his wife, Neni; and their six-year-old son. In the fall of 2007, Jende can hardly believe his luck when he lands a job as a chauffeur for Clark Edwards, a senior executive at Lehman Brothers. Clark demands punctuality, discretion, and loyalty - and Jende is eager to please. Clark's wife, Cindy, even offers Neni temporary work at the Edwardses' summer home in the Hamptons.
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Overhyped
- By Rochelle on 08-27-16
By: Imbolo Mbue
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Hell of a Book
- A Novel
- By: Jason Mott
- Narrated by: JD Jackson, Ronald Peet
- Length: 9 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
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In Jason Mott’s Hell of a Book, a Black author sets out on a cross-country publicity tour to promote his bestselling novel. That storyline drives Hell of a Book and is the scaffolding of something much larger and more urgent: Mott’s novel also tells the story of Soot, a young Black boy living in a rural town in the recent past, and The Kid, a possibly imaginary child who appears to the author on his tour.
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Four Stars for Content, One More for...
- By Paul Frandano on 08-12-21
By: Jason Mott
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Dust Child
- By: Que Mai Phan Nguyen
- Narrated by: Quyen Ngo
- Length: 12 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
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From the internationally bestselling author of The Mountains Sing, a propulsive and moving tale of wartime love, family, and loss, as an American GI, two Vietnamese bargirls, and an Amerasian man are forced to make decisions during and after the Việt Nam War that will reverberate throughout each other’s lives.
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Beautiful and moving
- By TPT on 06-17-23
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Detransition, Baby
- A Novel
- By: Torrey Peters
- Narrated by: Renata Friedman
- Length: 12 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
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Reese almost had it all: a loving relationship with Amy, an apartment in New York City, a job she didn't hate. She had scraped together what previous generations of trans women could only dream of: a life of mundane, bourgeois comforts. The only thing missing was a child. But then her girlfriend, Amy, detransitioned and became Ames, and everything fell apart. Now Reese is caught in a self-destructive pattern: avoiding her loneliness by sleeping with married men.
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Emotional Torture
- By Teh Micha on 04-27-21
By: Torrey Peters
What listeners say about Catalina
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Davey D
- 08-07-24
Absolutely unforgettable experience!
Catalina is such a fun and deeply provocative book! It’s so intimate, full of inside thoughts described in hilariously and relatable ways. I walk away full of clever insights, feeling like I have a new best friend. This is definitely my new favorite book. Super easy to read, it’s a page turner till the end. So sad it’s over! The audio version was super soothing and had me laughing out loud. My absolute new favorite book! I’m getting a copy for everyone!
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- BenYL
- 09-12-24
Brilliant
Sharp and funny and poignant. Never read anything quite like it. I will remember Catalina’s voice.
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- keenneogeo
- 03-31-25
Frivolity and nuance
This reads exactly as what it is. I can relate to the content that was prosaically reflecting on what it means to have a culture and homeland outside of the US while being sunk in the nonchalant unbelonging to belong.
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- Lee Sanford
- 10-02-24
A splendid read on Audible
An unforgettable voice and horrific story that transported me someplace I had never been. What more do you want a wonderful book?
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1 person found this helpful
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- Patricia M Hart
- 11-01-24
Monotone delivery
Found it difficult to connect with main characters. Given the difficulties she faced, the reading should have had more emotion. I had to force myself to finish it
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1 person found this helpful