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A review by niksasali
They Could Have Named Her Anything by Stephanie Jimenez
emotional
reflective
sad
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.75
Don't often leave comments but this one was hard to rate for me. First, the purpose of my choosing of it was for a challenge prompt where the main character was a similar age to me in a similar time. In this case the main character was 17 and it was 2006 which is when I would've been 19. I expected to have more social cultural references that would have that nostalgia attached to them but really didn't find that.. in fact other than mentions of cable TV, it seemed more current the 2006 (the amount of times it referred to people on their phones, I remember 2006 as a time where far fewer people lived with their phones attached to their hands).
The bigger thing for me was I didn't really like anyone in the book... usually in books like this where you're seeing the struggles people have and what they're up against and all of that, I can like even the character with the least redeeming qualities, but none of them seemed to care about anyone other than themselves.. with the exception of maybe Maria's parents but that only really showed towards the end.
Finally, I was little disappointed that for a book that on the back claimed to be told through the perspectives of four characters it was pretty much 90% through one character's perspective with the other 3 getting small slivers.
I love that the bookaddress class and race issues as well as sexual consent issues..., But I also felt those topics were only just brought to the surface but never actually explored with much depth. They were only ever really looked up by one person's perspective and not discussed in any meaningful way between characters so that people could go any deeper with it.
The bigger thing for me was I didn't really like anyone in the book... usually in books like this where you're seeing the struggles people have and what they're up against and all of that, I can like even the character with the least redeeming qualities, but none of them seemed to care about anyone other than themselves.. with the exception of maybe Maria's parents but that only really showed towards the end.
Finally, I was little disappointed that for a book that on the back claimed to be told through the perspectives of four characters it was pretty much 90% through one character's perspective with the other 3 getting small slivers.
I love that the bookaddress class and race issues as well as sexual consent issues..., But I also felt those topics were only just brought to the surface but never actually explored with much depth. They were only ever really looked up by one person's perspective and not discussed in any meaningful way between characters so that people could go any deeper with it.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Adult/minor relationship