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laurensilva's review
hopeful
reflective
medium-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
2.25
The jacket summary makes it seem like L.A. Weather is going to be much deeper than it actually is. Unfortunately, what we get instead is a bunch of of half-baked characters and half scenes that bounce us through the year without giving us enough time with any one character. Escandón doesn't provide readers with a strong enough foothold to feel anything deeper than surface level angst or annoyance with her characters. For example, we get only two mentions of Lola working with Legal Aid and nothing more. Escandón touches on the 2016 election and Oscar's feelings about it regarding his workers and other immigrants in LA, but that's it. We get a minuscule look at Lola's life outside the Alvarados, including paragraphs about her friend and daughter. Why? What does that serve the book?
L.A. Weather and its readers would have been better off it the book had been written and marketed as a broad peek into the lives of a handful of Angelenos instead of portraying it as one family’s internal struggles. As it is, it seems Escandón wanted to do both, but succeeded at neither.
L.A. Weather and its readers would have been better off it the book had been written and marketed as a broad peek into the lives of a handful of Angelenos instead of portraying it as one family’s internal struggles. As it is, it seems Escandón wanted to do both, but succeeded at neither.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Infidelity and Animal death
Moderate: Pregnancy
Minor: Deportation, Infertility, Rape, and Suicidal thoughts
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