Boston : Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, [2017].
445 p. ; 22 cm.
Yes, it's kind of a long book (logging in at over 400 pages) but it reads pretty easily and it really is a lovely book to read. A cursory description of the book (teen with dead mother has loving gay adoptive father, smart snarky female friend who loses her mother, and homeless friend who loses his mother, all set in a Mexican American family setting in El Paso) might make it seem like a parody of the YA realistic problem novel, but it is a lot more than that.
The novel is definitely a bildungsroman centering on Sal, the boy whose mother died when he was three and who left him in the care of her wonderful gay friend, the painter Vincente who raises him. Sal has to deal with changes in him that happen during his senior year. Who "really" is he? What is this new anger that causes him to punch out a couple of bigots and homophobes? How will he cope with the loss of his beloved aunt Mima who is old and dying. And what about his friend Sam - who is very smart and ambitious, but only dates crummy "bad" boys? And theirs Fito, too, Sal's friend who lives with an addict mother - is studious and saving up for college - and ends up homeless? Yes, it's a lot and yet, Sáenz manages to spin out his novel as if he's just telling you the true story of his own life.
There is so much heart in this novel. Several passages really did get me teary, especially the depth of friendship between the teens and the depth of parental love from Sal's father. As a Kirkus review states, this book is another "stellar, gentle look into the emotional lives of teens on the cusp of adulthood."
In this year of bigotry, racism, presidential vulgarity, and government-inspired hatred of immigrants, reading this novel felt like a spa-vacation for my heart and a retreat for my mind.
Yes, I would recommend it!
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