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greenlivingaudioworm 's review for:
The Epic Fail of Arturo Zamora
by Pablo Cartaya
"We fight, we Zamoras! We fight for what we believe in. We fight for family. We fight to preserve our sense of home. We fight to be just and fair and above all, we fight for love. No form of exile or malady can defeat us. It is invincible."
The Epic Fail of Arturo Zamora was a delightful story of Arturo, a kid just trying to survive the summer between 7th and 8th grade. Arturo is part of a large family: they all live in the same apartment complex and most of the family works at La Cocina de la Isla, the restaurant Arturo's grandparents started many years ago. La Cocina de la Isla is a neighborhood staple, serving delicious food and has a caring environment with Arturo's abuela taking the time to get to know each and every patron. Arturo loves Sunday night dinners at the restaurant, where he can enjoy the food and company sitting right next to his abuela. This summer poses some new challenges for Arturo: his mom's goddaughter comes to visit from Spain and Arturo develops a crush on her, his two best friends will be spending several weeks out of town, and there's a slick new land developer who just rolled into town. This guy wants to develop the empty lot next to La Cocina de la Isla into a new highrise that will be exclusive for some members of the community.
I really enjoyed this story. Not only is Arturo incredibly relatable, the cast of characters in this story are very fun. I loved seeing Arturo's relationship with his abuela and seeing him get to know his deceased abuelo through letters he wrote before his death. (I did have to wonder why Arturo seemed to be the favorite grandchild though. That was a storyline I would have liked to see developed). I really enjoyed Arturo's descriptions of what it felt like any time he was around Carmen, the cute girl he's developing feelings for. I liked that Arturo had a summer job at the family restaurant that caused him to learn the importance of showing up for work on time and putting in your best effort yet still having time to enjoy the long summer days just being a kid. But what I really enjoyed was this first look into gentrification. Gentrification is such a complex topic, even for adults, but Cartaya covered the ramifications of gentrification on the existing community so well. This is a fantastic look at how easy it is to sway the community to the new and shiny but also to really think about the community members left behind.
This was a fun middle grade book that I read in one sitting. I'm looking forward to hearing what my middle school students thought of this one. A few of them mentioned the Spanish was a little overwhelming, but I thought Cartaya did a nice job of having Arturo translate the Spanish into English for the untrained Spanish reader.
TW: death of a family member
The Epic Fail of Arturo Zamora was a delightful story of Arturo, a kid just trying to survive the summer between 7th and 8th grade. Arturo is part of a large family: they all live in the same apartment complex and most of the family works at La Cocina de la Isla, the restaurant Arturo's grandparents started many years ago. La Cocina de la Isla is a neighborhood staple, serving delicious food and has a caring environment with Arturo's abuela taking the time to get to know each and every patron. Arturo loves Sunday night dinners at the restaurant, where he can enjoy the food and company sitting right next to his abuela. This summer poses some new challenges for Arturo: his mom's goddaughter comes to visit from Spain and Arturo develops a crush on her, his two best friends will be spending several weeks out of town, and there's a slick new land developer who just rolled into town. This guy wants to develop the empty lot next to La Cocina de la Isla into a new highrise that will be exclusive for some members of the community.
I really enjoyed this story. Not only is Arturo incredibly relatable, the cast of characters in this story are very fun. I loved seeing Arturo's relationship with his abuela and seeing him get to know his deceased abuelo through letters he wrote before his death. (I did have to wonder why Arturo seemed to be the favorite grandchild though. That was a storyline I would have liked to see developed). I really enjoyed Arturo's descriptions of what it felt like any time he was around Carmen, the cute girl he's developing feelings for. I liked that Arturo had a summer job at the family restaurant that caused him to learn the importance of showing up for work on time and putting in your best effort yet still having time to enjoy the long summer days just being a kid. But what I really enjoyed was this first look into gentrification. Gentrification is such a complex topic, even for adults, but Cartaya covered the ramifications of gentrification on the existing community so well. This is a fantastic look at how easy it is to sway the community to the new and shiny but also to really think about the community members left behind.
This was a fun middle grade book that I read in one sitting. I'm looking forward to hearing what my middle school students thought of this one. A few of them mentioned the Spanish was a little overwhelming, but I thought Cartaya did a nice job of having Arturo translate the Spanish into English for the untrained Spanish reader.
TW: death of a family member