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A review by biblioemily
American Road Trip by Patrick Flores-Scott
4.0
Things I loved: Mexican-American representation, green chile cheeseburgers!!, supportive family, T's determination to change his life. The realities of PTSD and how this can affect family members, too.
Things I didn't love: The dialogue is pretty unnatural. Wendy & T's conversation doesn't sound the way teens talk. (it reminded me of The Inexplicable Logic of My Life in this regard) I also hated that Xoch and T felt responsible for "fixing" Manny, and that T's parents are portrayed as kind of helpless and not responsible enough. It's also upsetting that Xochitl doesn't tell her parents about the suicide note.
SLJ recommends this for 7th & up. I'm more inclined to recommend it to 8th & up because of the attempted suicide and scenes where Manny is dealing with flashbacks. This book is gorgeous and also tragic.
Things I didn't love: The dialogue is pretty unnatural. Wendy & T's conversation doesn't sound the way teens talk. (it reminded me of The Inexplicable Logic of My Life in this regard) I also hated that Xoch and T felt responsible for "fixing" Manny, and that T's parents are portrayed as kind of helpless and not responsible enough. It's also upsetting that Xochitl doesn't tell her parents about the suicide note.
SLJ recommends this for 7th & up. I'm more inclined to recommend it to 8th & up because of the attempted suicide and scenes where Manny is dealing with flashbacks. This book is gorgeous and also tragic.