A review by analenegrace
A Cuban Girl's Guide to Tea and Tomorrow by Laura Taylor Namey

emotional hopeful reflective medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

I decided to read this before the movie adaptation comes to streaming at some point this year and I'm glad I did. This book is sweet and gives you well-rounded characters with emotions that do not feel too high strung for the characters as many romance novels do. While I didn't love the beginning of the book, I felt like the reader got too much information in an info-dumping style rather than learning Lila's story throughout the beginning, I loved the ending and felt quite emotional at the resolution of the plotlines. 

My favorite aspects of this book was the author's use of clothing and food items to show Lila's emotional progression, acceptance, and eventual love of England. Her refusal to wear the Winter clothes in the beginning to her loving the cardigans etc by the end was a great way to showcase her settling into this new life and growing up in a way that felt natural. Also on Lila, I loved the way we got her relationship with her abuela, the line "Abuela Grew Me" made me tear up because it was such a great representation of Lila's evolution and relationship with her and her family's past. Her relationship with Stefanie was quite complicated to me, but I liked the final resolution because it was
a good way to show that you cannot always take your childhood friends into adulthoods and that it is okay to grow apart so you can grow up.


On Orion, I would have loved more detail on him, like beyond Maxwell's we know nothing about him. He was a great love interest, but I would have loved to see some detail on him, especially since his friend group has a diverse age range so i'd love to know how their friend group grew. He was very sweet and earnest and he did not have communication problems so that makes him a great love interest to me!

Lastly,
the Prom Flora, Orion, and Jules plan for Lila was so sweet and then Jules's song made it better, and then the KISS made it the most enjoyable scene of the book.
It was an emotional moment for the characters and a beautiful culmination of Lila's journey. 
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