Scan barcode
A review by hfrimmer
They Could Have Named Her Anything by Stephanie Jimenez
5.0
When Maria Rosario begins commuting to a private high school on the upper east side of Manhattan, she is befriended by Rocky, a girl who doesn’t think twice about paying for Maria’s meals and even buys her a plane ticket. Maria is enamored with her new, wealthy friend, but she’s also worried Rocky will look down on because she lives in Queens. She doesn’t want to have to explain to Rocky why the hot water in the bathroom always turns cold or why they don’t have cable TV. Meanwhile, Rocky is equally jealous of Maria’s loving, functional family. The way Rocky sees it, Maria is loved and needed, while her own parents’ marital troubles prevent them from paying attention to their children. As the two girls become closer, their families get tangled together in messy and complicated ways. The structure of the novel is fascinating and works perfectly, the perspective shifting even within chapters from Maria to Rocky to each of their fathers. My favorite passage from the book is Maria’s thoughts about her home borough.
“Sometimes, when Maria walked down Queens Boulevard, she felt as if she were in front of an ocean. Twelve lanes wide and spanning far into the horizon, it provoked a similar sense of awe. In those rare moments when she had it to herself, when the sun had gone down and even the cars were sporadic, fleeting like flies, Maria was overcome with emotion. She felt so deeply her full humanity then. Some people had backyards, other people mountaintops, but Maria had Queens Boulevard to help her appreciate the ample beauty of existence.”
An insightful coming of age story centering on Maria, this vibrant debut offers so much more—a cautionary tale of the haves and have nots, an examination of wealth and whether that truly brings happiness, a dissection of loneliness and jealousy, and so much more. Stephanie Jimenez is an exciting new writer to watch.
“Sometimes, when Maria walked down Queens Boulevard, she felt as if she were in front of an ocean. Twelve lanes wide and spanning far into the horizon, it provoked a similar sense of awe. In those rare moments when she had it to herself, when the sun had gone down and even the cars were sporadic, fleeting like flies, Maria was overcome with emotion. She felt so deeply her full humanity then. Some people had backyards, other people mountaintops, but Maria had Queens Boulevard to help her appreciate the ample beauty of existence.”
An insightful coming of age story centering on Maria, this vibrant debut offers so much more—a cautionary tale of the haves and have nots, an examination of wealth and whether that truly brings happiness, a dissection of loneliness and jealousy, and so much more. Stephanie Jimenez is an exciting new writer to watch.