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cosmicwillow's review
funny
lighthearted
reflective
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.25
this is the kind of book that would have been so perfect for me to have read as a teenager going through similar feelings to ophelia (though in quite different ways lol!). i loved how perfectly teenage this book was alongside that, and how that really affirmed what i went through as a teenager discovering my queerness. had a great time reading this!
dragonz_den's review
dnf @ 12% when i realized i’m not a romance girlie and that’s okay
arielleb148's review against another edition
i was excited for a gay book but then like 3 pages in i started to get war flashbacks from my senior year and then also all the other years of high school and that’s just not a good place for me to be in mentally so…sorry, but dnf. blame the trauma high school left me with.
sarah_bell's review against another edition
emotional
hopeful
inspiring
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
izzys_internet_bookshelf's review
2.0
2.5/5
I found it to be alright. The romance took a while for me to enjoy. I did like the plot but I felt the pacing was slow.
I found it to be alright. The romance took a while for me to enjoy. I did like the plot but I felt the pacing was slow.
rainbowbookworm's review
2.0
As a half-Cuban lesbian, I was super pumped to read this one. When I read that Talia was Puerto Rican (like myself), I was over the moon. I was listening to the audiobook and reading along with my Kindle when two things happened that immediately affected my appreciation for this book:
The first was that the narrator mispronounced alcapurria as alcapurría (even though the word has no accent in the printed book).
The second was that, in that same scene Ophelia introduces Talia to the main character's favorite Cuban comfort food: papas rellenas. Talia decides to order it after Ophelia raves about them. The problem is that in Puerto Rico we have papas rellenas, we just call them rellenos de papas.
You might think this is much ado about nothing, but readers like myself are excited about seeing our own cultures represented in text, and it is annoying when authors make these kinds of mistake that take away from the authenticity we seek from texts written not just by fellow Latinx authors, but from fellow Caribbean authors. Couldn't the author (or the editor) have run this past a Puerto Rican reader?
(Another annoying moment in the audiobook experience is that there is an important conversation between Ophelia and her Cuban father where the father has a very distinct Argentinian accent.)
The story itself is okay. I was expecting a love story, but the book was more about Ophelia accepting parts of herself that she had chosen to ignore and becoming frustrated as she realizes how her family and friends see her. My disappointment doesn't lie in the fact that Ophelia doesn't get the girl, but in the fact that the plot of the book and the characters' conversations center too much around vapid, prom-related things.
I do appreciate that the author included a lot of LQBTQIAP rep, but it was not enough to make me like the book.
The first was that the narrator mispronounced alcapurria as alcapurría (even though the word has no accent in the printed book).
The second was that, in that same scene Ophelia introduces Talia to the main character's favorite Cuban comfort food: papas rellenas. Talia decides to order it after Ophelia raves about them. The problem is that in Puerto Rico we have papas rellenas, we just call them rellenos de papas.
You might think this is much ado about nothing, but readers like myself are excited about seeing our own cultures represented in text, and it is annoying when authors make these kinds of mistake that take away from the authenticity we seek from texts written not just by fellow Latinx authors, but from fellow Caribbean authors. Couldn't the author (or the editor) have run this past a Puerto Rican reader?
(Another annoying moment in the audiobook experience is that there is an important conversation between Ophelia and her Cuban father where the father has a very distinct Argentinian accent.)
The story itself is okay. I was expecting a love story, but the book was more about Ophelia accepting parts of herself that she had chosen to ignore and becoming frustrated as she realizes how her family and friends see her. My disappointment doesn't lie in the fact that Ophelia doesn't get the girl, but in the fact that the plot of the book and the characters' conversations center too much around vapid, prom-related things.
I do appreciate that the author included a lot of LQBTQIAP rep, but it was not enough to make me like the book.
marieintheraw's review
5.0
Overall, absolutely consumable and I need to read the next thing that is out by her ASAP.
I received an ecopy of this book via Netgalley; however, my opinions are my own.
I received an ecopy of this book via Netgalley; however, my opinions are my own.