Not only is Margot experiencing an identity crisis, the book is too.
A Puerto Rican teenager spends the summer working in her father’s South Bronx supermarket, where she experiences myriad unfortunate developments.
Margot Sanchez is being punished for stealing her father’s credit card by working at Sanchez & Son’s Supermarket. Accustomed to the whitewashed scenery of Somerset Prep, the brown-skinned teen now has to put up with her older, violent brother who lost his wrestling scholarship and got kicked out of school. Margot's machista dad oversees the store, while her submissive mother stays at home. With secondary and tertiary characters aplenty, turbulent relationships abound at the workplace, among friends and family, and threaten a gentrifying neighborhood. As seen through narrator Margot’s eyes, the characters are often unapologetically, stereotypically flawed: the men are macho or players; the rich, white youth are privileged and usually ignorant; the Latinas are mostly sassy and full of attitude, but at other times they are submissive. In this coming-of-age novel, Rivera touches on countless problems: trust issues, family grief and disappointment, domestic violence, verbal abuse, socio-economic woes, love affairs, a neighborhood undergoing gentrification. Rather than delving into these issues, readers are flung from one plot point to the next, as if running through a checklist of conflicts: drunken sex, drugs, violence, theft, lies. Unitalicized Spanish and Puerto Rican colloquialisms are generously woven into the text, as are slurs in both English and Spanish.
Not only is Margot experiencing an identity crisis, the book is too. (Fiction. 14 & up)Pub Date: Feb. 21, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-4814-7211-1
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Oct. 25, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2016
There’s not much plot here, but readers will relish the opportunity to climb inside Autumn’s head.
The finely drawn characters capture readers’ attention in this debut.
Autumn and Phineas, nicknamed Finny, were born a week apart; their mothers are still best friends. Growing up, Autumn and Finny were like peas in a pod despite their differences: Autumn is “quirky and odd,” while Finny is “sweet and shy and everyone like[s] him.” But in eighth grade, Autumn and Finny stop being friends due to an unexpected kiss. They drift apart and find new friends, but their friendship keeps asserting itself at parties, shared holiday gatherings and random encounters. In the summer after graduation, Autumn and Finny reconnect and are finally ready to be more than friends. But on August 8, everything changes, and Autumn has to rely on all her strength to move on. Autumn’s coming-of-age is sensitively chronicled, with a wide range of experiences and events shaping her character. Even secondary characters are well-rounded, with their own histories and motivations.
There’s not much plot here, but readers will relish the opportunity to climb inside Autumn’s head. (Fiction. 14 & up)Pub Date: April 1, 2013
ISBN: 978-1-4022-7782-5
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Sourcebooks Fire
Review Posted Online: Feb. 12, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2013
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
An ode to the children of migrants who have been taken away.
A Mexican American boy takes on heavy responsibilities when his family is torn apart.
Mateo’s life is turned upside down the day U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents show up unsuccessfully seeking his Pa at his New York City bodega. The Garcias live in fear until the day both parents are picked up; his Pa is taken to jail and his Ma to a detention center. The adults around Mateo offer support to him and his 7-year-old sister, Sophie, however, he knows he is now responsible for caring for her and the bodega as well as trying to survive junior year—that is, if he wants to fulfill his dream to enter the drama program at the Tisch School of the Arts and become an actor. Mateo’s relationships with his friends Kimmie and Adam (a potential love interest) also suffer repercussions as he keeps his situation a secret. Kimmie is half Korean (her other half is unspecified) and Adam is Italian American; Mateo feels disconnected from them, less American, and with worries they can’t understand. He talks himself out of choosing a safer course of action, a decision that deepens the story. Mateo’s self-awareness and inner monologue at times make him seem older than 16, and, with significant turmoil in the main plot, some side elements feel underdeveloped. Aleman’s narrative joins the ranks of heart-wrenching stories of migrant families who have been separated.
An ode to the children of migrants who have been taken away. (Fiction. 14-18)Pub Date: May 4, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-7595-5605-8
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Feb. 22, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2021
BOOK REVIEW
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