Big Library Read
NEXT BIG LIBRARY READ WILL BE IN July 2025
Join the Discussion July 17 - July 31, 2025
Did you know, the Big Library Read is the first global eBook club?
Big Library Read (BLR), facilitated by OverDrive, is a reading program through your library that connects millions of readers around the world with the same eBook at the same time without any wait lists or holds.
It’s a worldwide digital version of a local book club. The program is free through your local library or school library. This means as UR students, staff, and faculty all you need is your Net ID to get started.
The Storyteller’s Death
A gorgeously written family saga about a Puerto Rican woman who finds herself gifted (or cursed?) with a strange ability.
There was always an old woman dying in the back room of her family’s house when Isla was a child…
Isla Larsen Sanchez’s life begins to unravel when her father passes away. Instead of being comforted at home in New Jersey, her mother starts leaving her in Puerto Rico with her grandmother and great-aunt each summer like a piece of forgotten luggage.
When Isla turns eighteen, her grandmother, a great storyteller, dies. It is then that Isla discovers she has a gift passed down through her family’s cuentistas. The tales of dead family storytellers are brought back to life, replaying themselves over and over in front of her.
At first, Isla is enchanted by this connection to the Sanchez cuentistas. But when Isla has a vision of an old murder mystery, she realizes that if she can’t solve it to make the loop end, these seemingly harmless stories could cost Isla her life.
Ann Dávila Cardinal is a two-time International Latino Book Award winning novelist and aging tattooed punk. She is a Nuyorican, Vermont-based author with an MFA in Writing from Vermont College of Fine Arts (VCFA), and she comes from a long line of Puerto Rican writers. She is the author of the young adult novels Five Midnights, Category Five, Breakup from Hell, and You’ve Awoken Her. Her adult debut, The Storyteller’s Death, received multiple starred reviews and was the winner of the International Latino Book Award Gold Medal. Her second adult novel, We Need No Wings, was released in 2024.