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candaceallison's review against another edition
challenging
dark
emotional
reflective
sad
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
briaraq's review
5.0
I'm heartbroken???? I was not expecting the end, but I'm not surprised, unfortunately.
z_brarian's review
3.0
Took me a while to get through this book. Definitely a very realistic YA novel, focusing on the struggles of lower class teens trying to get ahead in the world. Didn’t see the end coming. Sometimes the writing felt stilted which may be why it was hard to get through.
sarinatb's review against another edition
challenging
dark
emotional
funny
hopeful
inspiring
sad
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.5
zbrarian's review
3.0
Took me a while to get through this book. Definitely a very realistic YA novel, focusing on the struggles of lower class teens trying to get ahead in the world. Didn’t see the end coming. Sometimes the writing felt stilted which may be why it was hard to get through.
sasha_in_a_box's review
3.0
This book is full of pain. The pain of rejection, the pain of disappearing, the pain of failure and the unknown and the physical and, sharpest of all, the pain of disappointing yourself, over and over again, until you forget how to hope for yourself. It's relentless and difficult to read, with tiny rays of sunshine tantalizing enough to make the rest of it hurt more than before.
I super get it, there are no novels about brown lives matter and the voices of boys like Juan and JD and humans like Fabi, Mando, and Grandpa are drowned out in the world that simply doesn't give a shit about them enough to even spit on them, so this is incredibly important. But it is a very difficult novel, and I don't know how many kids would pick it up. I hope that this book finds its way into the hands of a kid just like Juan and JD and gives them a tiny bite of agency that makes a difference.
I super get it, there are no novels about brown lives matter and the voices of boys like Juan and JD and humans like Fabi, Mando, and Grandpa are drowned out in the world that simply doesn't give a shit about them enough to even spit on them, so this is incredibly important. But it is a very difficult novel, and I don't know how many kids would pick it up. I hope that this book finds its way into the hands of a kid just like Juan and JD and gives them a tiny bite of agency that makes a difference.
frogqueen's review against another edition
emotional
hopeful
sad
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
3.5
- slice of life about two teenage boys living in el paso, dreaming of making it out and becoming a filmmaker and a basketball player respectively, getting dragged down by reality
- up to the last 50 pages, it felt like nothing much happened. this was frustrating while reading, but in hindsight i think it was a good decision to show the intricacies of teenage life this way
- a good reflection of how we go about our mundane lives, trying to chip away at our goals, sabotaging ourselves and convincing ourselves we aren't, knowing in the back of our minds that it can all come crashing down at any moment
- the ending, while heartbreaking, was really, really good- the different layers of dramatic irony and the implications this has for each of the characters, the hope that comes out of destruction.
- aside from the pace, my main complaint is that i had a hard time telling what year this was supposed to be- the details of armando's crime, which happened about 18 years before the events of the book, were written on a typewriter and then later scanned in because they didn't use computers to do such things at that time, and yet google, youtube, tumblr, and BITCOIN (!?) are all mentioned in such a way that suggests they are all reasonably well known and within the public consciousness. so to me the earliest this could be is around 2015, but you mean to tell me prisons were still using typewriters for records in the late 90s?
- also fabi still has a flip phone, which, ok, she doesn't have a lot of money, but by the late 2010s there were widely available cheap smartphones, so this also felt off
- i also think maybe this book could have benefited from being a bit longer. i felt like i didn't get to know any of the characters well enough to really understand them
raeanne's review
5.0
Read for free on Rivetedlit.com Dec 5th 2019.
I loved this. The third person narrative threw me at first, but it really works. As it goes on, it has a bit of "we're all unreliable narrators" type feel going on, as we get bits and pieces of events and have to connect the dots. Which just makes me love it more.
Fabi, Juan's mom, POV was another curve ball. A parental POV in YA? One who was a teen mom? Still struggling working mother? One who actually TALKS about unexpected pregnancies and abortion and swears and fucks up? Goddamn. At the end, she was my favorite.
AND omfg, the real talk about religion and gods? Juan's granddad GETS IT.
AND it's critical of the military industrial complex preying on poor people as a system of oppression and injustice.
There's so much outside of our control. And our choices hinge upon these unknowable domino effect choices and assumptions.
The plot is these boys against everything, growing up and finding themselves and making a way through in this fucked up world. Trying to get to Juan's dad before his executions. Trying to be something, go somewhere. They do that.
It's not a happy underdog feel good story for the colonizers to feel better about themselves. There are no good white people or saviors, just varying degrees of not getting it.
Life sucks and then you die.
Haters of this book are just barely missing everything.
I loved this. The third person narrative threw me at first, but it really works. As it goes on, it has a bit of "we're all unreliable narrators" type feel going on, as we get bits and pieces of events and have to connect the dots. Which just makes me love it more.
Fabi, Juan's mom, POV was another curve ball. A parental POV in YA? One who was a teen mom? Still struggling working mother? One who actually TALKS about unexpected pregnancies and abortion and swears and fucks up? Goddamn. At the end, she was my favorite.
AND omfg, the real talk about religion and gods? Juan's granddad GETS IT.
AND it's critical of the military industrial complex preying on poor people as a system of oppression and injustice.
There's so much outside of our control. And our choices hinge upon these unknowable domino effect choices and assumptions.
The plot is these boys against everything, growing up and finding themselves and making a way through in this fucked up world. Trying to get to Juan's dad before his executions. Trying to be something, go somewhere. They do that.
It's not a happy underdog feel good story for the colonizers to feel better about themselves. There are no good white people or saviors, just varying degrees of not getting it.
Life sucks and then you die.
Haters of this book are just barely missing everything.
reinventing_mrs's review
3.0
I’m giving this book three stars, though I’m not sure it’s a fair assessment. I had high expectations as I began reading, being a native El Pasoan myself. From the start, the story grabbed me and drew me in. I found myself “navigating” the neighborhoods with ease, laughing at the inside jokes about the city and its culture, easily understanding where the characters were coming from. I soon became critical, however, as I ran into what I perceived to be unforgivable errors in lingo, the misspellings of long-standing establishments, and incorrect accent placement. So, I have to ask myself, am I being fair to Matt Mendez? Am I expecting him to tell MY story simply because I, too, grew up in El Paso? Am I expecting his characters to act and sound like MY friends, MY family, MY El Paso?
The story line is a good one - filled with all of the drama, misgivings, and tragedy you’d expect and hope to see in a novel about two teenaged Mexican-American friends growing up in the barrio. It’s not as raw as many of the books out now - The Hate U Give, I Am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter - but it does deal with some heavy topics. It’s more about the day-to-day drama faced by the two main characters, JD and Juan, and their struggle to escape the stale air and endless cycle of nothingness in their world. Interwoven into their story are the stories of friends and family members, some who are dealing with the same struggle, some who have escaped or on the verge of escape, and some who have given in to the inevitability of being stuck.
My favorite character in the book was Fabi. A single mom, doing her best to raise a young son on her own, very much aware of her short-comings, ever observant of the disapproving looks from others, hiding behind a bad-ass facade. Fabi was the most real character for me - the best developed, the most raw.
Again, I don’t feel I am being fair to Matt Mendez or to his story. And I realize this is a YA book, but I think I wanted more from the characters - more fuerza, more sabor. In the end, I guess I did want Matt Mendez to represent the El Paso, the people, the experience that I know.
The story line is a good one - filled with all of the drama, misgivings, and tragedy you’d expect and hope to see in a novel about two teenaged Mexican-American friends growing up in the barrio. It’s not as raw as many of the books out now - The Hate U Give, I Am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter - but it does deal with some heavy topics. It’s more about the day-to-day drama faced by the two main characters, JD and Juan, and their struggle to escape the stale air and endless cycle of nothingness in their world. Interwoven into their story are the stories of friends and family members, some who are dealing with the same struggle, some who have escaped or on the verge of escape, and some who have given in to the inevitability of being stuck.
My favorite character in the book was Fabi. A single mom, doing her best to raise a young son on her own, very much aware of her short-comings, ever observant of the disapproving looks from others, hiding behind a bad-ass facade. Fabi was the most real character for me - the best developed, the most raw.
Again, I don’t feel I am being fair to Matt Mendez or to his story. And I realize this is a YA book, but I think I wanted more from the characters - more fuerza, more sabor. In the end, I guess I did want Matt Mendez to represent the El Paso, the people, the experience that I know.