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A review by lifeinpoetry
They Could Have Named Her Anything by Stephanie Jimenez
cw: sexual abuse of minors
I hate to admit it but I did not like this.
Everyone is a horrible person here, especially the friend's father who abuses underage girls.
A major theme of this novel is power, such as the lack of power the main character, Maria, has in directing her own life and her attempts to take control, even if by. Or the brief moments she savors where her (kind of) friend, Rocky, carries something for her or performs a task for her.
Which would be interesting is Maria wasn't so inherently dislikable. It wasn't even the cheating or the lying which isn't something that causes an automatic problem for me in fiction. It was her correction of her mother's pronunciation in English, those little humiliations. Maria treating her hard working immigrant parents like garbage even as she works to "save" them. I mean, I know parents can be embarrassing at that age but there's a certain awareness, however grudging, as a child of immigrants that your parents immigrated not only for their future but their children's future. Not true in all cases but often enough.
Maria prioritizes whiteness for most of the book. She wants to have what Rocky has.
There's a change of heart at the end but it was too little, too late.
I hate to admit it but I did not like this.
Everyone is a horrible person here, especially the friend's father who abuses underage girls.
A major theme of this novel is power, such as the lack of power the main character, Maria, has in directing her own life and her attempts to take control, even if by
Spoiler
selling her body to a friend's father for college moneyWhich would be interesting is Maria wasn't so inherently dislikable. It wasn't even the cheating or the lying which isn't something that causes an automatic problem for me in fiction. It was her correction of her mother's pronunciation in English, those little humiliations. Maria treating her hard working immigrant parents like garbage even as she works to "save" them. I mean, I know parents can be embarrassing at that age but there's a certain awareness, however grudging, as a child of immigrants that your parents immigrated not only for their future but their children's future. Not true in all cases but often enough.
Maria prioritizes whiteness for most of the book. She wants to have what Rocky has.
There's a change of heart at the end but it was too little, too late.