This is the most hassle-free way I've found to effectively refresh my Spanish skills. I listened to this book while doing housework, just as I would with any other audiobook, and with my attention partly on chores I was still able to both follow the story and gain exposure to a lot of helpful new vocabulary.

The title describes this book as "10 short stories," but it's actually one continuous story divided into ten chapters. That's good, because the continuity helps keep you listening. Each chapter concludes with a supplemental section that summarizes what's just happened, both in Spanish and English, then drills several dozen vocabulary words from the story, and finally asks a few multiple-choice reading comprehension questions. This is a solid formula for strengthening your skills, and it helps that the story, which is about an American student traveling for the first time in Latin America, is cute and easy to listen to.

What makes this book a standout though is the narrator. Mariela Arredondo is seriously A+, both as a language teacher and storyteller. Right from the introduction, a section that tends to be filler in most language-learning recordings, Mariela's warmth and energetic delivery is a welcome surprise that didn't even once tempt me to use the skip button. Her advice and encouragement will, I daresay, actually leave you feeling well-advised and encouraged. Even better, she's a great performer. Her expressive voice makes it easy to tell apart the different characters and their emotions, which both aids comprehension and breathes no small amount of life into the material.

The clarity of Mariela's delivery also means you can get the most bang for your buck by increasing the speed of the audio on repeat listens. The crystal clear pronunciation won't get muddled if you raise the tempo, and that makes this book a great practice tool for learning how to follow speedy Spanish speakers. It also makes the vocabulary sections doubly valuable. I found these sections to be way less boring than the drills in other language learning tapes, because they reinforce words you already have memorable context for from the story. The vocab sections also give you time to focus on Mariela's model pronunciation, and fine-tune your own.

I took Spanish in grade school for years, and since then I've made countless earnest, but short-lived, attempts to improve. If you've tried to read novels in Spanish, get through language-learning tapes, watch telenovelas for more than the unintentional comedy and so on - first of all, high five, and second, consider giving this book a try. With minimal commitment, it gets you back into the swing of learning; and, just as importantly, it paves the way toward being able to confidently read or listen to your own choice of material in Spanish.

Note: I was given this free review copy audiobook at my request, and have voluntarily left this review. ( )