A review by emilyrpf
American Fairytale by Adriana Herrera

emotional lighthearted medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

This book fell apart for me during The Break Up.

For all of Camilo's talk and obsession over his own agency, he completely ignores his mother's agency. Maybe she was happy to have her back rent and the next six months of rent paid for! Camilo never asks, instead making it all about himself, and I found it very off-putting. I liked his character a lot until then, but I spent the rest of the book angry at him for making decisions for his mother—a woman who, as she reminds him, crossed 90 miles of open ocean in a makeshift boat with nothing but the clothes on her back. Had Camilo learned some kind of lesson about his own pride and inability to ask for help (a thread which the book raises), then I would have been fine with it, but the fact that he doesn't, and that his alpha male machismo and making decisions for the woman in his life is portrayed as Good and Right, took at least 1 star off my rating.