©2025 Fable Group Inc.
3.0 

The Remainder

By Alia Trabucco Zerán & Sophie Hughes
The Remainder by Alia Trabucco Zerán & Sophie Hughes digital book - Fable

Publisher Description

Longlisted for the 2019 Man Booker International Prize

Felipe and Iquela, two young friends in modern day Santiago, live in the legacy of Chile’s dictatorship. Felipe prowls the streets counting dead bodies real and imagined, aspiring to a perfect number that might offer closure. Iquela and Paloma, an old acquaintance from Iquela’s childhood, search for a way to reconcile their fragile lives with their parents’ violent militant past. The body of Paloma’s mother gets lost in transit, sending the three on a pisco-fueled journey up the cordillera as they confront the pain that stretches across generations.

Download the free Fable app

app book lists

Stay organized

Keep track of what you’re reading, what you’ve finished, and what’s next.
app book recommendations

Build a better TBR

Swipe, skip, and save with our smart list-building tool
app book reviews

Rate and review

Share your take with other readers with half stars, emojis, and tags
app comments

Curate your feed

Meet readers like you in the Fable For You feed, designed to build bookish communities
app book lists

Stay organized

Keep track of what you’re reading, what you’ve finished, and what’s next.
app book recommendations

Build a better TBR

Swipe, skip, and save with our smart list-building tool
app book reviews

Rate and review

Share your take with other readers with half stars, emojis, and tags
app comments

Curate your feed

Meet readers like you in the Fable For You feed, designed to build bookish communities

31 Reviews

3.0
“sue me but i hated this. honestly for the life of me i couldn’t tell you why i finished this other than the fact it meant i checked something off of my reading list. at many points this book felt like it was weird for the sake of being weird. its weirdness was pointless and felt like it was only there to shock me. the characters all felt flat - paloma had almost no personality and felipe felt annoying. iquela was my favourite character, but honestly she had no competition and was only likeable because she made sense. most of this book does not make sense to me. i cannot tell what is real or not real or imagined or fake or what. the plot feels barely connected, and the payout felt weak and like i had wasted my time. the only thing i found intriguing about this book was its historical context, but honestly nothing was ever explained and every time the past was touched on i felt so close to actually enjoying this, and then the author rips the historical context out of my grubby hands and makes me return to felipe and iquela fighting. this review feels so mean but im actually angry because this book had potential. at parts i did have fun. i was constantly waiting for this book to get better. it did not. i might try and read the authors other book, namely when women kill, but honestly im so mad at this book i don’t even want to look at her other books for a while. im gonna go watch drag race im actually so mad edit: omg hello how did i forget the two massive things that made me the most angry about this book. at one point “autistic” is used as an insult, and there is an incredibly graphic scene of animal cruelty for no reason! which is even harder for me to read as it was about a parrot! i lost my baby girl, a green cheek conure named monty, only earlier this year. i actually wanted to vomit and cry reading that. i’ll miss you forever baby girl. and fuck this book for adding unnecessary animal cruelty.”
“Rep: Chilean cast & setting, sapphic mcs, achillean mc”

About Alia Trabucco Zerán

Alia Trabucco Zerán was born in Chile in 1983. She holds an MFA in creative writing in Spanish from New York University and a PhD in Latin American Studies from University College London. La Resta (The Remainder) was chosen by El País as one of its top ten debuts of 2015 and was granted a Best Literary Work Award from the Chilean Council for the Arts. She is also the author of Las homicidas, a non-fiction book about women who kill.

Sophie Hughes is an award-winning translator from Spanish. She has been the recipient of an American PEN/Heim Translation Fund grant, and in 2018 she was announced as one of the Arts Foundation 25th anniversary fellows for her contribution to the field of literary translation.

Start a Book Club

Start a public or private book club with this book on the Fable app today!

FAQ

Do I have to buy the ebook to participate in a book club?

Why can’t I buy the ebook on the app?

How is Fable’s reader different from Kindle?

Do you sell physical books too?

Are book clubs free to join on Fable?

How do I start a book club with this book on Fable?

Error Icon
Save to a list
0
/
30
0
/
100
Private List
Private lists are not visible to other Fable users on your public profile.
Notification Icon
Fable uses the TMDB API but is not endorsed or certified by TMDB