Review: The Education of Margot Sanchez

The Education of Margot Sanchez by Lilliam Rivera
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Margot wants to be someone else.

However, her family, friends, and pseudo-community will guarantee her desire won't happen.

The Education of Margot Sanchez is a coming of age story featuring a Latina coping with two masks: the one she wears when she's at Somerset Prep and it's ritzy, privileged crowd and the one, more geared towards her true self, she wears around her father, mother, brother, best friend Elizabeth, and a guy locking her heart down without her permission, Moises.

Pretty in Pink meets the South Bronx it is not. Margot's dealing with deeper issues than homemade dresses and whether or not she'll choose Ducky over Blane.

Pros:
1. A Latina character, unsure of herself, while aware she wears two masks society forces her to wear (Another book discussing the masks/code-switching is Piecing Me Together). Can she be her true self around the popular, rich, and white crowd of her prep school while maintaining her roots back in the Boogie Down Bronx, and if so, when will they inevitably collide?

2. Complex issues: Colorism (her dad considers Triguenos bad luck and blanchquitos good luck), drug selling and use, marital affairs, "keeping it real", classism, gentrification, and one's place in society are shown.

Review: The Upside of Unrequited

The Upside of Unrequited by Becky Albertalli
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Sugar, Spice, and Everything Nice. While normally not my book taste, I found with welcomed arms in The Upside of Unrequited. I might need dental work after reading this tale, but I'm not complaining.

Every teenager knows rejection once or twice during their adolescence. However, Molly Peskin-Suso cannot stomach - in her mind - the daily meal of the painful notion. Fat girls get picked last, if at all (Her mindset, not mine). While she comes from a loving family, especially her twin sister (the "beautiful one") Cassie. However, the latter experiences joy in a new girl, while Molly discovers potential in co-worker and in the new girl's friend. Who knew Molly have an opportunity to choose the owner of her first kiss? Will she finally accept that rejection is a common and temporary part of life or when she bundle good moments to prove unnecessary points?

Pros:
1. Character diversity
- body diversity. Molly's fat. She knows and loves herself for it. (So, does her family and friends. There's a scene of body-shaming that's quickly shut down by Molly in a great way. The girl can stand up for herself!) Reid, her (view spoiler)[ co-worker/friend/boyfriend (hide spoiler)] is too.
- people of color. Mina's Korean. Nadine, one of Molly's moms, Abby, and their family are black.
- LGBTQA representation. Cassie (Molly's twin sister) is bisexual. Mina (her girlfriend) is pansexual. They are the twin daughters of an interracial lesbian couple. Other characters are also on the spectrum.
- Religious diversity. Patty, the other mom, is Jewish, as are Reid and his parents.
2. Healthy family relationships (even the problematic members come around). Healthy female and male friendships. I loved Nadine more so than Patty because I saw more of the former than the latter.
3. The comedic moments ring natural, as do the dramatic ones.
4. A snazzy cover with a spin on the happy emoji alongside two arrows in opposite directions (I wonder if the symbolize Molly and Cassie's parents).
5. Quick pacing
6. An overall cute and modern coming of age story.

Review: The Hate U Give

The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Sixteen year-old Starr Carter wears a mask daily: one in her poor, black neighborhood and one in the rich and predominately white neighborhood where she attends an elite school. But, for unbeknownst to those around her, masks tire and tighten with each passing day. The balance between managing the tightness and fatigue comes to a head after witnessing the shooting death of her friend, Khalil, by the hands of a police officer during a traffic stop.

Once his death makes headline news, she battles assumptions from those ignorant of who Khalil was as a person. Everybody has an opinion - some good, some bad, others clueless. As those opinions come to a head, Starr wonders just how long she's willing to walk the tightrope others desire her to teeter.

Review: Love & Gelato

Love & Gelato by Jenna Evans Welch
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

4

Love & Gelato - two delicious items one can get in Italy. While I've enjoyed both in Venice, this story takes place in Florence. Lina visits Tuscany for the summer, despite her mother's dying wish, to live with her father. After all, he never played a part in her sixteen years of life, so why bother? But, after finding her mother's journal, she finds out that expectations aren't so black and white.

Quick wrap-up

Pros:

1. Quick pacing

2. A character that's pretty likeable. She's not dim-witted (though at times she was rather unobservant). Her confusion throughout her short journey is relatable. She's grieving her mother - a woman with secrets and facets unbeknownst to her daughter. While she loves her mother, she sometimes feels as though she never knew her.

3. I loved reading about some landmarks in Florence (I haven't visited yet). Vivid descriptions included throughout the pages helped me visualize the story.

4. A bit of Italian thrown in. While not exactly Rosetta Stone, you pick up a word or two for future reference.

Review: Brown Girl Dreaming

Brown Girl Dreaming by Jacqueline Woodson
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Joy. Tears. Remembrance. Urban. Rural. Racial strife. Racial connection. Sweet. Soulful. Glorious.

All of these words encapsulate my feelings toward this memoir of a brown girl's dreams, dancing during an era where a smile hid fears, pain, and simple pleasures from beyond.

Pros:

1. Connection. I immediately connected with Jacqueline's memories dressed in free verse. From her trips to the South to visit family in summer to her urban observations to simple smells kindled by mentions of hair grease and fresh linen. Her experiences mirrored mine, despite the thirteen year difference. She evoked images almost every black girl of a certain age (age 37 and over) could relate.

2. Free verse format. I love reading stories presented in different fashion from standard formats. While this book is nonfictional, her words never feel like I'm reading an informational avalanche. There's a beauty in her words, flowing with abandon, sends you on a journey, and while you're never sure the outcome, you're willing to go.

3. Quick paced. Reading this book shouldn't take more than two to three days (based on one's schedule).