I am not your perfect Mexican daughter

Review by New York Times Review

We've heard all the sayings: Family comes first. Family is forever. You can't choose your family! But the reality isn't always so simple. Benway's unforgettable novel explores the paradoxes and entanglements of unconventional families through the story of three biological half-siblings who don't meet until their teens. When 16-year-old Grace - A.P. chem student, cross-country runner and allaround good girl - gets pregnant and gives up her infant for adoption, it leaves her both emotionally shattered and motivated to find her own biological family, whom she knows nothing about. Enter Maya and Joachim, who have been growing up in neighboring towns but in very different circumstances. Fifteen-year-old Maya was also adopted as a baby, but has always felt the odd one out in her wealthy family. Lately, her mom's drinking is out of control and her parents are splitting up. Seventeen-year-old Joaquin, meanwhile, never even got adopted; still in foster care, he has been bumped around the system "like a set of keys someone had misplaced." As the three gradually bond over shared quirks and feelings of abandonment, Grace convinces the other two that they need to find their birth mother. It's a melodrama, to be sure, but with as much brain as heart. Benway ("Emmy & Oliver") writes with remarkable control and has the rare talent of almost vanishing as an author as she inhabits each character's perspective. Grace, Maya and Joaquin leap off the page as living, breathing teenagers, individual down to their fingerprints. The novel is also a brilliant exercise in empathy: As the siblings share their secret stories, we see them develop outrage, love, tenderness and sympathy for each other. As readers, we can't help doing the same. DEAR MARTIN By Nie Stone 210 pp. Crown Books for Young Readers. $17.99. (Ages 14 and up) As the success of Angie Thomas's "The Hate U Give" makes clear, Y.A. readers have a hunger for stories dramatizing racial profiling and the quest for social justice. Nie Stone's powerful debut about a striving black teenager trying his hardest to play by society's rules introduces Justyce McAllister, a scholarship student at an elite private school in Atlanta. Ranked fourth in his senior class, he's captain of the debate team and a contender for Yale. But when he's roughed up by the police who assume he was trying to steal his ex-girlfriend's Mercedes he realizes that he'll never stop being judged by his skin color. Tensions rise when one classmate accuses him of unfairly benefiting from affirmative action and another dresses as a Klansman for Halloween. (It's a "massive political statement about racial equality and broken barriers," explains the privileged bro.) All hell breaks loose when Justyce and his best friend get into a deadly altercation with an off-duty police officer. Stone packs an impressive spectrum of characters and viewpoints into 210 fastpaced pages: from Manny, the son of wealthy black professionals who tells Justyce he's being overly "sensitive" and confesses that he's "scared of black girls," to SJ, Justyce's civil rights-crusading Jewish debate partner (and guilty crush). While not all the characters are well developed, the smart, soul-searching Justyce is a hero readers will enjoy rooting for. "I thought if I made sure to be an upstanding member of society, I'd be exempt from the stuff THOSE black guys deal with, you know?" he writes. (The novel's title come from his journal entries, which are written in the form of letters to Martin Luther King Jr.) "Really hard to swallow that I was wrong." I AM NOT YOUR PERFECT MEXICAN DAUGHTER By Erika L. Sánchez 344 pp. Knopf. $17.99. (Ages 14 and up) Don't be fooled by the dreary title. This gripping debut about a Mexican-American misfit is alive and crackling - a gritty tale wrapped in a page-turner. The story begins when Olga, the seemingly "perfect" older sister of 15-year-old Chicagoan Julia Reyes, is killed in a bus accident. Olga was quiet, modest and infuriatingly devoted to their traditionbound parents - the opposite of Julia, an aspiring writer and rebellious smartmouth whose worst fear is that she'll "end up working in a factory, marry some loser, and have his ugly children." After Julia finds evidence that "Saint Olga" may have had a less-than-holy double life, she becomes obsessed with uncovering her dead sister's secrets. Part detective story, part coming-ofage tale, Sanchez's novel doesn't shy from heavy subject matter. Julia lives in a world where teenagers are no strangers to poverty, sexual assault,, domestic violence and fear of deportation. And Julia's relationship with her mother, who calls her a "huevona" and a "malcriada" (bonus: readers get a crash course in Spanish insults) is a sticky stew of anger, love, guilt and resentment. The story spirals into dark territory when Julia begins to suffer from clinical depression. But she's so blunt, funny and brave that she never becomes an object of our pity. And her moments of joy - as during a visit to her parents' hometown in Mexico, when she sits under the stars while her aunt braids her hair, "her fingers cool against the back of my neck" - are transcendent. LITTLE & LION By Brandy Colbert 327 pp. Little, Brown. $17.99. (Ages 14 and up) Set in the privileged climes of boho Los Angeles, Colbert's novel depicts the type of America that keeps hard-core traditionalists up at night. The central family consists of a black mom (a screenwriter), a white dad (an artisanal woodworker), and their two kids from previous relationships : 15-year-old Suzette and 16-year-old Lionel. Suzette (aka Little) is black and just figuring out she's bisexual. Lionel is white, bipolar and a fan of The New Yorker. And oh yeah, the parents aren't married and the whole family is Jewish. Arriving home for the summer after her first year at boarding school, Suzette is desperate to regain her old closeness with Lion, who's been keeping her at arm's length since his diagnosis. She's also racked with guilt about something that happened back at school between her and Iris, the first girl she's ever slept with. Suzette doesn't even know if she's 100 percent gay; she finds herself equally attracted to a guy (Emil, a half-black, half-Korean childhood pal) and a new girl (Rafaela, a sexy-tough Texan). Adding to the hot mess, Lionel falls for the same girl as his sister. Colbert writes about physical attraction with a real sizzle and she has concocted her bizarre love rectangle so ingeniously, readers will be dying to know - on the most basic level - who will end up with whom. And though its prose can be a bit stilted (Suzette says things like, "We hustle to our respective sides of the car") the book feels urgent and true. NOTHING By Annie Barrows 212 pp. Greenwillow Books. $17.99. (Ages 14 and up) Fans of the beloved middle grade series "Ivy + Bean" may feel a flush of familiarity upon meeting the 15-year-old bestfriend duo at the center of Barrow's first Y.A. novel. Charlotte is light-brownhaired and introspective, with literary aspirations; Frankie is a dark-haired, impulsive go-getter. Think: Ivy and Bean, now with angst and four-letter words. The novel's name comes from Charlotte's assertion that "nothing" happens in their safe, dull lives. And so she decides to write a book called "Nothing," tracing the course of her and Frankie's year: "It'll be, like, a searing document of today's youth and how incredibly boring our lives are!" In chapters that bounce between thirdperson perspective and Charlotte's confessional pages, the best friends gab, text, do homework, get high, buy burritos and mascara, humor their parents and obsess over their love lives (or lack thereof). Frankie considers applying to private school and learns to drive. Charlotte develops an intense textual relationship with a boy she's never met named Sid (she doesn't know what he looks like because Sid has a "no-picture rule"). But just because the stakes are low doesn't mean the book lacks depth. Barrows captures the highs and lows of her characters' emotional lives with remarkable feeling, revealing how even the most joined-at-the-hip BFFs inevitably have secrets and resentments. Best of all is Charlotte's voice, a hyperactive streamof-consciousness gush . Spending time with these two is a lovely, low-key pleasure. CATHERINE HONG, a contributing editor at Elle Decor, blogs about children's books at mrslittle.com.

Copyright (c) The New York Times Company [November 12, 2017]

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Review by Booklist Review

Julia's older sister, Olga, was always polite, respected her parents, and eagerly took up the Mexican traditions her mother insisted upon. After Olga dies in a car accident, Julia is thrust into a spotlight she's not ready for. She's too angry, too unappreciative, too American, which results in her mother shutting out her social and love life. Then Julia discovers Olga's trove of secrets, which hint at a hidden life. As Julia pursues the mystery of the real Olga, she begins to find out that more than one of her family members has secrets. This bildungsroman immigrant story captures the chaotic life of a young person trying to navigate two worlds while trying to follow her own path. Julia wants to leave Chicago and attend college, while a perfect Mexican daughter would stay put, get a job, and contribute to the family. Sánchez weaves these threads along with a tragic story of distant sisters to create an earnest and heartfelt tale that will resonate with teens.--Suarez, Reinhardt Copyright 2017 Booklist

From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.

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Review by Publisher's Weekly Review

For the audio edition of Sánchez's YA novel, actor Garcia plays up the resentment, guilt, and disbelief of a tough-as-nails protagonist grieving the death of her older sister. Fifteen-year-old Julia Reyes always saw herself as the rebel of the family, while her older sister, Olga, was the perfect one, whom their parents favored. After Olga is killed in a traffic accident, Julia starts to lash out at everyone around her. Actor Garcia perfects Julia's hardened exterior and presents her gritty attitude not as an act of defiance, but rather in terms of her determination to leave her Chicago home and lead a full life, in part because her sister will never have that opportunity. Though Sánchez packs multiple plot lines into the book, including Julia's suicide attempt and her fling with a rich boy from the suburbs, Garcia's reading helps situate them into the larger emotional journey of coming-of-age while grieving the tragic death of a family member. The result is a powerful audiobook. Ages 14-up. A Knopf hardcover. (Oct.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.

(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

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Review by Library Journal Review

Olga was always the good girl. She stayed home after high school, got a job as a receptionist, took classes at the local college, and helped her family-until she died in a car crash. Her family is left in pieces as they try to navigate life without their beloved daughter. Julia, her younger sister, is not what her mother would call a good girl. She is opinionated, has no desire to clean or cook, and can't wait to move out. Her parents spend their days mourning for their favorite child, and Julia spends her nights sifting through Olga's room. Olga seemed like the perfect daughter but even the dead have their secrets. Julia uncovers small clues that make her believe that Olga wasn't exactly whom everyone thought she was and follows the thread to learn more about her sibling. Kyla Garcia's narration creates a rich cast of characters. Verdict This coming-of-age story will have tremendous crossover appeal. The protagonist is smart and complex, and the story of family expectations and culture clashes will resonate with many listeners.-Katie Llera, South Bound Brook, NJ © Copyright 2018. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

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Review by School Library Journal Review

Gr 10 Up--Olga was always the good girl. She stayed home after high school, got a job as a receptionist, took classes at the local college, and always helped her family-until she died in a car crash. Her family is left in pieces as they try to navigate life without their beloved daughter. Julia, her younger sister, is complex, smart, and opinionated. She has no desire to clean or learn how to cook and can't wait to move out. Julia spends her nights sifting through Olga's room and uncovers small clues that make her believe that Olga wasn't exactly who she thought she was. Kyla Garcia's narration creates a rich cast of characters, and Sanchez's writing is spot-on with her depiction of teenage life that is timeless. This story will resonate with many listeners who have felt lonely within their own families. VERDICT This coming-of-age story about acceptance of yourself, as well as your family and culture, is a definite purchase.-Katie Llera, Bound Brook High School, NJ © Copyright 2018. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

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Review by Horn Book Review

When her older sister, Olga, dies, Julia discovers Olga was not the perfect Mexican daughter everybody thought she was. Julia, who longs to be a writer and leave her poor Chicago neighborhood behind, must decide whether she should keep Olgas secret or tell her parents the truth, all the while fending off her own depression and her mothers unrealistic expectations. Julias sardonic wit results in laugh-out-loud moments, which balance the intense mother-daughter arguments. Garcias engaging reading adds new dimension to the book through her expressive voices (Julia is prickly yet vulnerable) and individual accents for each character. julie hakim azzam (c) Copyright 2018. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

(c) Copyright The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

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Review by Kirkus Book Review

After the death of her dutiful older sister, Olga, Julia must deal with grieving parents and the discovery that her sister was keeping secrets.Fifteen-year-old Julia Reyes is nothing like her sister, "Saint Olga," who was struck by a semi at age 22 and was always the family's "perfect Mexican daughter": contributing at home, attending community college, working at a doctor's office, and helping their mother clean houses. Julia, on the other hand, hates living in her roach-infested apartment building in their predominantly Latinx Chicago neighborhood, and she doesn't even try to live up to her Am and Ap's expectations that she behave like a proper Mexican young lady. After secretly snooping through Olga's room, Julia begins to suspect that Olga may have led a double life. In one of many overlong subplots, Julia starts a romance with a rich Evanston white boy, Connor, whom she meets at a used bookstore. Snchez's prose is authentic, but it's difficult to root for Julia, because she's so contemptuous, judgmental, and unpleasant: "I do dislike most people and most things"from "nosy" aunts, "idiot" cousins, and tacky quinceaera parties to even her "wild and slutty" best friend, Lorena, at least sometimes. An abrupt plot development involving self-harm and mental illness feels forced, as does a magically life-changing trip to Mexico in the third act. This gritty contemporary novel about an unlikable first-generation Mexican-American teen fails to deliver as a coming-of-age journey. (Fiction. 14-17) Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

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One     What's surprised me most about seeing my sister dead is the lingering smirk on her face. Her pale lips are turned up ever so slightly, and someone has filled in her patchy eyebrows with a black pencil. The top half of her face is angry--like she's ready to stab someone--and the bottom half is almost smug. This is not the Olga I knew. Olga was as meek and fragile as a baby bird.   I wanted her to wear the pretty purple dress that didn't hide her body like all of her other outfits, but Amá chose the bright yellow one with the pink flowers I've always hated. It was so unstylish, so classically Olga. It made her either four or eighty years old. I could never decide which. Her hair is just as bad as the dress--tight, crunchy curls that remind me of a rich lady's poodle. How cruel to let her look like that. The bruises and gashes on her cheeks are masked with thick coats of cheap foundation, making her face haggard, even though she is (was) only twenty-two. Don't they pump your body full of strange chemicals to prevent your skin from stretching and puckering, to keep your face from resembling a rubber mask? Where did they find this mortician, the flea market?   My poor older sister had a special talent for making herself less attractive. She was skinny and had an okay body, but she always managed to make it look like a sack of potatoes. Her face was pale and plain, never a single drop of makeup. What a waste. I'm no fashion icon--far from it--but I do feel strongly against dressing like the elderly. Now she's doing it from beyond the grave, but this time it's not even her fault.   Olga never looked or acted like a normal twenty-two-year-old. It made me mad sometimes. Here she was, a grown-ass woman, and all she did was go to work, sit at home with our parents, and take one class each semester at the local community college. Every once and a while, she'd go shopping with Amá or to the movies with her best friend, Angie, to watch terrible romantic comedies about clumsy but adorable blond women who fall in love with architects in the streets of New York City. What kind of life is that? Didn't she want more? Didn't she ever want to go out and grab the world by the balls? Ever since I could pick up a pen, I've wanted to be a famous writer. I want to be so successful that people stop me on the street and ask, "Oh my God, are you Julia Reyes, the best writer who has ever graced this earth?" All I know is that I'm going to pack my bags when I graduate and say, "Peace out, mothafuckas."   But not Olga. Saint Olga, the perfect Mexican daughter. Sometimes I wanted to scream at her until something switched on in her brain. But the only time I ever asked her why she didn't move out or go to a real college, she told me to leave her alone in a voice so weak and brittle, I never wanted to ask her again. Now I'll never know what Olga would have become. Maybe she would have surprised us all.   Here I am, thinking all of these horrible thoughts about my dead sister. It's easier to be pissed, though. If I stop being angry, I'm afraid I'll fall apart until I'm just a warm mound of flesh on the floor.   While I stare at my chewed-up nails and sink deeper into this floppy green couch, I hear Amá wailing. She really throws her body into it, too. "Mija, mija!" she screams as she practically climbs inside the casket. Apá doesn't even try to pull her off. I can't blame him, because when he tried to calm her down a few hours ago, Amá kicked and flailed her arms until she gave him a black eye. I guess he's going to leave her alone for now. She'll tire herself out eventually. I've seen babies do that.   Apá has been sitting in the back of the room all day, refusing to speak to anyone, staring off into nothing, like he always does. Sometimes I think I see his dark mustache quivering, but his eyes stay dry and clear as glass.   I want to hug Amá and tell her it's going to be okay, even though it's not and never will be, but I feel almost paralyzed, like I'm underwater and made of lead. When I open my mouth, nothing comes out. Besides, Amá and I haven't had that kind of relationship since I was little. We don't hug and say, "I love you," like on TV shows about boring white families who live in two-story houses and talk about their feelings. She and Olga were practically best friends, and I was the odd daughter out. We've been bickering, drifting away from each other for years. I've spent so much of my life trying to avoid Amá because we always end up arguing over stupid, petty things. We once fought about an egg yolk, for instance. True story.   Apá and I are the only ones in my family who haven't cried. He just hangs his head and remains silent as a stone. Maybe something is wrong with us. Maybe we're messed up beyond crying. Though my eyes haven't produced tears, I've felt the grief burrow in every cell of my body. There are moments that I feel like I might suffocate, as if all my insides are tied into a tight little ball. I haven't taken a crap in almost four days, but I'm not about to tell Amá in the state she's in. I'll just let it build until I explode like a piñata.   Amá has always been prettier than Olga, even now, with her swollen eyes and splotchy skin, which is not the way it's supposed to be. Her name is more graceful, too--Amparo Montenegro Reyes. Mothers are not supposed to be more beautiful than their daughters, and daughters are not supposed to die before their mothers. But Amá is more attractive than most people. She hardly has any wrinkles and has these big, round eyes that always look sad and wounded. Her long hair is thick and dark, and her body is still slim, unlike the other moms in the neighborhood who are shaped like upside-down pears. Every time I walk down the street with Amá, guys whistle and honk, which makes me wish I carried a slingshot.   Amá is rubbing Olga's face and crying softly now. This won't last, though. She's always quiet for a few minutes, then, all of a sudden, lets out a moan that makes your soul turn inside out. Now Tía Cuca is rubbing her back and telling her that Olga is with Jesus, that she can finally be in peace.   But when was Olga not in peace? This Jesus stuff is all a sack of crap. Once you're dead, you're dead. The only thing that makes sense to me is what Walt Whitman said about death: "Look for me under your boot soles." Olga's body will turn to dirt, which will grow into trees, and then someone in the future will step on their fallen leaves. There is no heaven. There is only earth, sky, and the transfer of energy. The idea would almost be beautiful if this weren't such a nightmare.   Two ladies waiting in line to see Olga in her casket begin crying. I've never seen them in my life. One is wearing a faded and billowy black dress, and the other wears a saggy skirt that looks like an old curtain. They clasp each other's hands and whisper.   Olga and I didn't have much in common, but we did love each other. There are stacks and stacks of pictures to prove it. In Amá's favorite, Olga is braiding my hair. Amá says Olga used to pretend that I was her baby. She'd put me in her toy carriage and sing me songs by Cepillín, that scary Mexican clown who looks like a rapist but everyone loves for some reason.   I would give anything to go back to the day she died and do things differently. I think of all the ways I could have kept Olga from getting on that bus. I've replayed the day over and over in my head so many times and have written down every single detail, but I still can't find the foreshadowing. When someone dies, people always say they had some sort of premonition, a sinking feeling that something awful was right around the corner. I didn't.   The day felt like any other: boring, uneventful, and annoying. We had swimming for gym class that afternoon. I've always hated being in that disgusting petri dish. The idea of being dunked in everyone's pee--and God knows what else--is enough to give me a panic attack, and the chlorine makes my skin itch and eyes sting. I always try to get out of it with elaborate and not-so-elaborate lies. That time, I told the thin-lipped Mrs. Kowalski that I was on my period again (the eighth day in a row), and she said she didn't believe me, that it was impossible for my period to be so long. Of course I was lying, but who was she to question my menstrual cycle? How intrusive.   "Do you want to check?" I asked. "I'd be very happy to provide you with empirical evidence if you want, even though I think you're violating my human rights." I regretted it as soon as it came out of my mouth. Maybe I have some sort of condition that keeps me from thinking through what I'm going to say. Sometimes it's word-puke spilling out everywhere. That was too much, even for me, but I was in a particularly foul mood and didn't want to deal with anyone. My moods shift like that all the time, even before Olga died. One minute I feel okay, and then all of a sudden my energy plummets for no reason at all. It's hard to explain.   Of course Mrs. Kowalski sent me to the principal's office, and as usual, they wouldn't let me go home until my parents came to pick me up. This had happened several times last year. Everyone knows me at the principal's office already. I'm there more often than some of the gangbangers, and it's always for running my mouth when I'm not supposed to. Whenever I enter the office, the secretary, Mrs. Maldonado, rolls her eyes and clucks her tongue.   Typically, Amá meets with my principal, Mr. Potter, who tells her what a disrespectful student I am. Then Amá gasps at what I've done and says, "Julia, que malcriada," and apologizes to him over and over again in her broken English. She is always apologizing to white people, which makes me feel embarrassed. And then I feel ashamed of my shame.   Amá punishes me for one or two weeks, depending on how severe my behavior is, and then, a few months later, it happens again. Like I said, I don't know how to control my mouth. Amá tells me, "Como te gusta la mala vida," and I guess she's right, because I always end up making things more difficult for myself. I used to be a model student, skipped third grade and everything, but now I'm a troublemaker.   Olga had taken the bus that day because her car was in the shop to get the brakes replaced. Amá was supposed to pick her up, but because she had to deal with me at school, she couldn't. If I'd shut my mouth, things would have worked out differently, but how was I supposed to know? When Olga got off the bus to transfer to another one across the street, she didn't see that the light had already turned green because she was looking at her phone. The bus honked to warn her, but it was too late. Olga stepped into the busy street at the wrong time. She got hit by a semi. Not just hit, though--smashed.   Whenever I think of my sister's crushed organs, I want to scream in a field of flowers until I'm hoarse.   Two of the witnesses said that she was smiling right before it happened. It's a miracle that her face was okay enough to have an open casket. She was dead by the time the ambulance arrived.   Even though the man driving couldn't have seen her because she was blocked by the bus and the light was green and Olga shouldn't have crossed one of the busiest streets in Chicago with her face in her phone, Amá cursed the driver up and down until she lost her voice. She got really creative, too. She had always scolded me for saying the word damn, which is not even a bad word, and here she was, telling the driver and God to fuck their mothers and themselves. I just watched her with my mouth hanging open.   We all knew it wasn't the driver's fault, but Amá needed someone to accuse. She hasn't blamed me directly, but I can see it in her big sad eyes every time she looks at me.   My nosy aunts are whispering behind me now. I can feel their eyes latched to the back of my head again. I know they're saying that this is my fault. They've never liked me because they think I'm trouble. When I dyed chunks of my hair bright blue, those drama queens almost needed to be put on stretchers and rushed to the hospital. They act as if I'm some sort of devil child because I don't like to go to church and would rather read books with them. Why is that a crime, though? They're boring. Plus, they have no idea how much I loved my sister.   I've had enough of their whispering, so I turn around to give them a dirty look. That's when I see Lorena come in, thank God. She's the only person who can make me feel better right now.   Everyone turns to stare at her in her outrageously high heels, tight black dress, and excessive makeup. Lorena is always drawing attention to herself. Maybe that'll give them something else to gossip about. She hugs me so tight she nearly cracks my ribs. Her cheap cherry body spray fills my nose and mouth.   Amá doesn't like Lorena because she thinks she's wild and slutty, which isn't untrue, but she has been my friend since I was eight and is more loyal than anyone I've ever known. I whisper to her that my tías are talking about me, that they're blaming me for what happened to Olga, that they're making me so angry, I want to smash all the windows with my bare fists. Excerpted from I Am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter by Erika L. Sánchez All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.

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