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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
ashleysbookthoughts's review against another edition
medium-paced
- Loveable characters? No
2.25
I really wanted to love this book. I love a family drama, and I was excited to dive into the Alvarados’ journey juxtaposed against droughts and fires in LA. But unfortunately, this one didn’t work for me.
I read that Escandon wanted this story to feel like a telenovela. While she definitely brought the drama and some ridiculous plot points, I’m not sure that she succeeded in tone. Telenovelas are inherently outrageous and are in on the joke. They know how outlandish the storylines are. There wasn’t anything in the writing here that made me think we weren’t supposed to take this seriously. Perhaps I missed the humor, but the book didn’t seem to be aware of how silly it was.
I also think that the structure of the book, written almost as a log of the year, hurt it. The book is divided by month, and within each month, by various dates. Each date entry is anywhere from one paragraph to three pages, but never follows more than one character or incident, resulting in a very choppy read. We read about things happening, but we never get to really know the characters (the three daughters are basically all the same person) and there never seem to be any consequences.
In the end, that was my biggest issue with LA Weather: none of the plot developments ultimately matter, because half of them are dropped with no follow-up, and the others never really have any major consequences for our characters. This lack of consequence or deep examination of plot points makes the inclusion of some sensitive topics clunky, poorly handled, and downright offensive.
I read it quickly and wanted to know what happened, but in the end, nothing really mattered. The best thing abou this book was that I buddy read it with @whatkissreads and we exchanged some very yelly voice notes about certain plot points.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Pregnancy, Rape, Fire/Fire injury, Infertility, Medical content, and Miscarriage
Moderate: Infidelity and Suicidal thoughts
Minor: Animal death
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