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3.86 AVERAGE
3.86 AVERAGE
I also think the comp for this book is misleading and that people should keep that in mind when they go into reading it. As an avid Gilmore Girls fan, comparing this to Gilmore Girls is kind of a disservice to readers and definitely made me think this was going to be a much different book than it really was. Kind of makes me think that whoever writes comps like this has never actually seen the show, since this is the second book I've read that was described as such but really felt nothing like it.
Also, this book is not all light and fluffy, so be careful going into this if you're expecting that.
TW:
Spoiler
death, discussions of pregnancyI feel conflicted right now. I can't really say what didn't work for me, I just know that something was off. Don't Date Rosa Santos follows three generations of Santos women the curse that follows them.
Sometimes it felt like the idea of being cursed was all in my head. Like it was a fabled warning to remind me to work hard and focus on my goals. The women before me had lost too much for me to be anything but firmly focused on the future. I was meant to achieve and make all of the loss, heartache, and sacrifices mean something.
This was beautifully written, truly. I loved the writing and the dialogue between the characters. I love how the author blended in some Spanish, it made everything feel so authentic. There was a major theme of grief in the story, which was surprising! I did not get anything like that from the blurb so it was a bit unexpected. Moreno's writing was lyrical, but not over the top at all which I appreciated.
I was a collection of hyphens and bilingual words. Always caught in between. Two schools, two languages, two countries. Never quite right or enough for either.
The romance, while not central to the story was adorable. It took me a bit to warm up to Rosa and Alex, I ended up really rooting for them. I do feel like the blurb was a bit misleading though. It made it sound like the curse and the romance would play a bigger part in the story, but that wasn't true at all. I guess if that's good or bad depends on who you ask, but if you were looking for a romance, while adorable, it was a bit underwhelming here. So as a romance fan I wish there had been a little bit more.
I think it was two main things that stopped me from rating this higher. First was the characters, while I liked Rosa, there were a lot of side characters that I wasn't particularly interested in. There were also so many of them, it was hard to keep everyone straight in my head. Second was the pacing. It felt like not much was happened in the first half and then too much happened at the end. It felt a bit rushed.
There was some good mixed in her though. Like I said I loved Rosa. Her obsession with a place she's never been and her journey to find where she belongs was amazing. She felt real and relatable. I also liked the setting of a small town called Port Coral in Florida.
Everything I knew about Cuba came from this coastal town, hundreds of miles from the island that was so unknown to me. I met my culture in the food I ate at our table, the songs that played on my abuela’s record player, and the stories that flowed through the bodega and Ana- Maria’s lively home. But I couldn’t find my family in those stories. I couldn’t find me.
While this won't be a favorite, I am glad I read it.
4 stars
I’ve been meaning to read this book for over a year at this point and I’m so glad I finally got around to it because I genuinely had such a good time with this one!
Don’t Date Rosa Santos follows a small town stressed high school senior who is determined to save her small town by throwing a spring festival fundraiser. There are also family curses, complicated family relationships, and a romance (!!) involved.
I loved the character of Rosa so much. Right from the moment she steps onto the page, she feels like a fully realized character who has a lot of depth to her and who’s also incredibly easy to sympathize with because of that. She also goes through a lot of development over the course of the story and I absolutely loved the way that was executed and the way her relationships with others contributed to that.
Speaking of relationships, I think this book does a really good job of exploring the familial relationships between Rosa, her mother, and her grandmother. Rosa lives with her grandmother in Port Coral because her mother travels for work, which results in Rosa not really having a consistent relationship with her mother and relying on her grandmother most of the time. But, over the course of the story, the relationships between the three women are explored in detail and I loved how much time was devoted to it. I also really appreciated that it was acknowledged that her mother and grandmother have a relationship outside of Rosa and we got to see that explored to an extent, as well.
A lot of this novel focuses on the exploration of the experience of being a diaspora Cuban and the way that affects your relationship to yourself and to your family and I thought that was explored really well through the family dynamics, although you should definitely take my opinion on this with a grain of salt.
I also really loved the whole small town dynamic/atmosphere in this book and the way the community aspect of it was explored. It was really endearing and fun to read about!! I also thought that the plot surrounding the spring festival in said town was paced really well and it was also a lot of fun to read about!!
I would like to also gush about the romance here because I absolutely adored Rosa and Alex and the way their relationship development. Can’t believe they invented romance.
My critiques for this book are few, so I will try to keep this part short. I do wish that we had gotten a bit more depth with the side characters and especially with Rosa’s friends because I really didn’t feel like we knew them at all and I did find myself getting a couple of the side characters confused.
I also wish the last section of this book had been longer because, to me, it felt really rushed and tacked on at the end without much build-up to it. While I do think that the ending did a good job of resolving the central conflict of the story, I do wish we had gotten a bit more time to tie up the loose ends.
Lovely YA story by Nina Moreno with just the right amount of romance, family, and friendship!
Great idea, amazing Latino town, poor execution.
