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Review: We Are Not From Here

Review for “We Are Not From Here” by Jenny Torres Sanchez (2020)

Rating: 5 out of 5 stars

At the beginning of this novel, 15-year-old Pulga (“Flea”), Pequena (“Tiny”), and Chico (“Boy”), three teenagers from Puerto Barrio, Guatemala, are living their normal lives. Pulga and Chico are brothers by choice, Pequena and Pulga are cousins. Life is hard in their barrio and trouble lurks around every corner, especially after Pulga and Chico witness the murder of a store owner by a local narco, the same criminal who raped and seeks to force Pequena into marriage. In response, the three teens sneak away from their families and leave for a better life in the United States.

After crossing a river and arriving at the Mexican border, the first obstacle the trio must conquer is La Bestia, a series of trains that run northward through Mexico. Migrants often ride on top of the trains, which are highly dangerous and claim many lives and severed limbs. The teens also face hunger, illness, corrupt police, the grueling heat of the desert, and criminals. Although most of this novel is bleak they do find kindness, which gets them to the next phase and beyond.

The story switches between the narration of Pulga, the practical, de facto leader of the group, and Pequena, prone to dreams and flights of fancy to escape reality. This book is brutally honest and terrifying, considering the ages of the protagonists who are experiencing these horrors first hand. The fear and the desperation in this book is real, and I felt every single moment of it.

This book tugs at your heart strings. It’s the best I’ve read this year so far. Although it is YA, the audience is anyone who wants to know about the people whose lives we’ve devalued by separating their families and imprisoning them at our borders. It also gives a clear picture for the those who ask why they come, even if it means death.

Five strong stars–please read this book.

Review: Clap When You Land

Review for “Clap When You Land” by Elizabeth Acevedo (2020)

Rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars

This is a beautifully multi-layered novel written in verse. Much like her other two novels (“The Poet X” and “With the Fire on High”), Elizabeth Acevedo manages to hit the ball out of the park again. She’s incapable of writing bad books, she has a gift and it is plainly evident in her writing.

“Clap When You Land” is a dual, alternating narrative told by two sisters who, at the beginning of the novel, do not yet know that they share a father in the same man. Camino lives in the Dominican Republic and longs to go to Columbia University in NYC, where her father lives and works for most of the year. Yahaira lives in Manhattan and hasn’t spoken to her dad since she found out that he has another wife in the DR. Their lives are vastly different: Yahaira has a girlfriend and loves to play chess, Camino is a talented swimmer and works with her aunt, a local healer. Both girls’ lives collide when their father dies in an airplane crash on his way from NYC to the island. Slowly, the two girls discover one another’s existence and carefully begin to form a bond.

Once again, this is a wonderfully complex book that explores toxic masculinity, socioeconomics, family bonds, and coming to terms with family secrets. I highly recommend reading this, you won’t want to miss it!

Review: All Boys Aren’t Blue

48678512. sy475 — Review for “All Boys Aren’t Blue: A Memoir-Manifesto” by George M. Johnson (2020)
Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

It has long been my goal of mine to read more books by LGBTQ authors of color, so this book (along with its beautiful cover) jumped out at me immediately. This YA-focused book centers the experiences of George Johnson, a 30-something journalist and queer Black activist. It begins with his middle class upbringing in New Jersey and ends with his observations of life at a historically Black college in Virginia, highlighting the joys and pain of queer existence across many topics–homophobia, sexual abuse, violence, gender policing, denial, and finally, coming out.

I loved this book. It wasn’t until the end that I truly realized how rarely the queer Black experience has been written about, and done so with such honesty. This title opens doors because it calls not just those who are outside of gender norms, but allies as well to a path of self healing and understanding.

Definitely read this book. You won’t regret it.

Review: Efren Divided

Review for "Efren Divided" by Ernesto Cisneros (2020)

Rating: 5 out of 5 stars

Woww…this one’s a tearjerker. A powerful and timely middle grades fiction novel about a relevant issue that affects so many children and their families in America.

Efren Nava is a likeable middle schooler living in Los Angeles with his parents and two younger twin siblings. Though the family lives modestly in a one-room apartment, their warmth and togetherness is cherished by Efren, who marvels at his hardworking father and the way his mother makes milagros (“miracles”) happen with little money. Although Efren and his siblings are citizens, his parents are undocumented and he knows that they face an uncertain future if their status is discovered. He keeps this fact a secret from everyone, including his closest friends and teachers.

Efren’s life is upended when he leaves for school one morning and returns to discover that his mother has been taken in a sweep by ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) and that she has been deported to Mexico. His father begins working non-stop to hire a coyote to bring her back. Efren is left in charge of his siblings, often late into the night. He is overwhelmed and in a constant state of anxiety, his school demeanor suffers. Eventually he and his best friend stop talking, crushed by the fact that he is afraid to reveal his parent’s status to anyone outside of his home.

I won’t reveal the end of the book, other than to say that there is no happy ending here. I respect the author for doing this, because the fact remains that nothing good comes out of separating parents from their children and splitting up families. Whether its Border Patrol placing children in cages in a detention center or ICE rounding up their parents in widespread sweeps, the damage of separation and deportation is devastating and irreparable.

I loved this book because it highlights the struggle of what it is truly like to live as an undocumented person, constantly looking over your shoulder and expecting the worst. There is no political rhetoric, just a child’s story that calls on readers to be compassionate and understand what they are going through. This is definitely a must-read in 2020 and a perfect book for both children and adults.

Review: The New David Espinoza

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Review for "The New David Espinoza" by Fred Aceves (2020)

Rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars

“The New David Espinoza” is a very well written book about a topic that’s rarely explored in YA fiction. The story centers around David, a Latino teenager dealing with past trauma, specifically, the recent death of his mother. Compounding his troubles is the fact that David is relentlessly bullied in school due to his small size. When a viral video surfaces of him being assaulted by classmates, David decides that he’s had enough and begins to change his diet, work out obsessively, and join a gym. He gives himself one summer to build his physique and ‘unveil’ his tougher, more muscular look to his peers. His path takes a dark turn when he befriends another aspiring bodybuilder and gets involved in steroid use to achieve his transformation.

Once again, I liked this book because it explores a topic that’s rarely explored in a lot of YA books I’ve read. Body dysmorphia is very real, yet a lot of books don’t explore the male side of this highly misunderstood psychological disorder. There’s also a lot of very thoughtful explorations on bullying and toxic masculinity here that I think teens will benefit from.

This is the second book I’ve read from Fred Aceves. I will continue to read his work in the future.

Four and a half stars.

Review: King and the Dragonflies

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Review for "King and the Dragonflies" by Kacen Callender (2020)

Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

Kingston lives in a small, unnamed Louisiana town with his parents. A few months prior, his older brother Khalid was killed. Before he died, he cautioned King to stay away from Sandy, a white boy at his school who has recently come out as gay. Throughout the story, King is overcome with grief for his brother, associated throughout the book with dragonflies, which King believes holds the spirit of Khalid. With his father telling him that “boys don’t cry” and his mother emotionally distant, King often escapes to the bayou to mourn and think about his brother.

One day at the bayou, King begins talking to Sandy. Despite warnings to stay away, the two boys become friends. Complicating his grief for Khalid and his friendship with Sandy is King’s realization that he is gay. When Sandy goes missing, King is forced to come to terms with his identity, as well as coming out to his family and friends.

This novel directly addresses many issues: homophobia in the Black community, toxic masculinity, racism, fear, child abuse, loss and grief. It’s an excellent novel that takes many of these hard-to-discuss tropes and manages to make them palatable for child readers, while at the same time not diluting their importance.

Review: White Bird

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Review for "White Bird" by R.J. Palacio (2019)

Rating: 5 out of 5 stars

“White Bird” is a beautifully drawn graphic novel about Julian’s grandmother’s experience during the Nazi occupation of France during WWII. If you are familiar with the ‘Wonder’ series, then you’ll remember Julian as the not-so-nice kid at Beecher Prep that gave the main character, Auggie, such a hard time fitting in with other students. For those that didn’t like Julian at the end of that story, this novel is his redemption, a chance for him to learn empathy from his beloved grandmother, Grandmere.

As Grandmere reflects on her past to Julian, we learn that she was once a young, middle class Jewish girl named Sara growing up during the days of Nazi-occupied France. In the beginning, she lives a sheltered existence at her home with her parents, even though public disdain and discrimination against Jews is everywhere. Eventually, the Nazis take over the region and begin to arrest Jews, killing them or rounding them up and transporting them to concentration camps. Sara hides in the home of a classmate, a kind boy with a walking disability named Julien who lives with his parents. Over the next several years, Julien and Sara form a close friendship. It is so close that after the war she names her son Julien, who in turn gives that name to the main character of this story.

I am skipping parts, of course, because I do not want to ruin this beautiful story. The pictures are a plus, exquisitely drawn in pastels and neutral colors. There are also loads of resources in the back of the book with information on the Holocaust, as well as organizations that educate and teach about this tragic historical event.

Be forewarned, however: this book is definitely a tearjerker. Go into this one with a warm blanket and lots of tissues. You’ll need them.

Five stars. Excellent book.

Review: Girls Like Us

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Review for "Girls Like Us" by Randi Pink (2019)

Rating: 3.5 out of 5

This YA story follows four girls dealing with pregnancy in the summer of 1972, right on the eve of the historic Roe vs. Wade decision which resulted in the decriminalization of abortion in America. To understand this story, it’s very important to take in the social climate of the time, which gave unmarried women very few choices when faced with an unplanned pregnancy. Having a child out of wedlock was not socially acceptable, those who could afford to could hide out in an unwed mother’s home until the birth and then place their child up for a closed adoption. The other option was to visit a person who performed abortions using questionable and often unsafe methods. Many women died in these botched, ‘back alley’ abortion procedures from blood loss, poisoning, infection from unsterile instruments, etc. It’s a sad, horrific history that, in 2019, certain people in political power would like to see women return to. I’ll step off of my soapbox for now, however.

“Girls Like Us” first introduces us to sisters Ola and Izella, the older of which, Ola, is expecting. Their mother, Evangelist, is a religious zealot and they make a pact to not tell her about the pregnancy. Ola and Izella visits a neighbor, a conjure woman who offers a quick home remedy to get rid of the baby. Meanwhile down the street, another young girl, Missippi, is pregnant from a rape by an older relative. When her father discovers what has happened to her, he sends Missippi up north to a woman who runs a home for young unwed pregnant women. In the home for pregnant women, Missippi meets a White young woman named Susan, the free-spirited daughter of a politician. Although their lives are different, they are in many ways the same. Their stories intersect with those of Izella and Ola, later on, in a dramatic way.

Overall, I liked this story, but I wasn’t engaged with any of the characters. I understand what the author was trying to do by universalizing the stories of women pre-Roe vs. Wade, but I think the writing was rushed here and a bit bland. Also, the ending was just kinda…there. I definitely get the connection to modern day stories, but felt this could have been written better.

I give this a 3.5. I’m very interested in what this author does next.

Review: Full Disclosure

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Review for "Full Disclosure" by Camryn Garrett (2019)  Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

Finally, a YA book that takes on race, sexuality, and HIV infection in an educated and meaningful way. Like, finally…

Simone Garcia Hampton is an ordinary Black teenage girl growing up in San Francisco–obsessed with directing plays on Broadway, embarrassed by her parents, and totally crushing on a boy she likes. Adopted as a young child by her two gay fathers, Simone is HIV positive, passed to her in utero from her birth mother. Although Simone is outwardly healthy and successfully takes medication to keep her viral load down, she lives in constant fear of her ‘secret’ getting out. Once Simone begins to show interest in Miles, a boy in her school’s drama club, she begins to receive notes from an anonymous source, threatening to publicly reveal her HIV+ status. Not wanting to give up what she’s got with Miles and risk losing her friends, she struggles with whether or not to continue keeping her status a secret.

I really liked this book. There’s tons of recent information here about living with HIV that I was not aware of, which has the power to educate younger readers without coming off as boring or preachy. There’s also a lot of progressive, sex-positive talk that I think teens will appreciate–frank discussions about masturbation, sex toys (Simone and her friends go into a sex shop), ob/gyn visits, etc. Simone is also pretty open with her sexual desires, a pretty taboo topic in YA. This book also spot-on with various forms of racial and queer representation: Simone, Miles, and her Pops are Black, her Dad is Latinx, one of her friends is Asian and bisexual, another is a lesbian and asexual.

This book is all around pretty rad, so definitely read this one.

Review: Pet

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Review for "Pet" by Akwaeke Emezi (2019)

Rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars

I will start this review by first saying that this is not the book for everyone. It’s marketed as YA, but I don’t think its intended for a general mainstream YA audience. I certainly think that that’s perfectly fine because anyone who stumbles upon this gem of a book, whether child or adult, will definitely love it like I did.

“Pet” is a novel about evil, particularly one that silences its victims and is ‘hidden’ in plain sight. I won’t be more specific than that because I’d give the novel away. The main character is Jam, a Black trans girl who lives in a Lucille, a futuristic, utopian version of an American city in which bad things have been banished and ‘monsters’ no longer exist. Jam is accepted and loved by her parents and her best friend, Redemption, as well as Redemption’s family.

One night, while exploring one of her mother’s paintings, Jam brings a monster to life. At first she is afraid, but then the monster explains the reason for its existence: to hunt a real-life monster. The creature, which Jam calls Pet, confuses her at first, until it is revealed that the location of the monster to be hunted is within her best friend Redemption’s house.

Right at about 200 pages, this is a short book that packs a heavy punch. It has a surreal feel to it, but the deeper questions it asks are based in a gritty, everyday reality. What are monsters made of? Who or what are angels? How do you tell the difference between the two?

Earlier in this review I said that this is not a book for everyone. I say that because I think we’ve become too used to YA with “grown” teenagers (kids who are 16-18 years old who seem to know every damn thing that’s going on around them). “Pet” is not such a novel. Jam is a 15-year-old girl and her naivete about the danger around her matches every bit of her age. Perhaps some readers will find this frustrating, but I found a book that speaks to the sensibilities of an actual child refreshing. Also, this book is all about queer representation, as I said before Jam is a trans girl; Redemption’s family is portrayed as possibly polyamorous (there’s a woman, a non-gender conforming person, and a man), in addition to several aunts and uncles living with him and his brother who also function as his parents.

I could type all day about this book. Definitely read it though, 4.5 stars.