The book I Am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter, by Erika L. Sánchez, has been on my to-read list for a while. I finally got around to reading it last week, and wow! What a book!
I Am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter is a young adult literary novel about immigration, depression, family, and believing that something better is possible.
Here are three things I enjoyed most about it:
- The personality. Julia was a fun person to get to know. She wanted more than her parents’ immigrant life, and sometimes that set her at odds with them, but she was a persistent person. She was also the kind of person who was unafraid of hard work; she wanted what she wanted and she was going to work hard to get it. I loved this about her.
- The glimpse into another culture. There was a quinceañera and all the other aspects of the Mexican life that Julia and her family brought to America. Some of my favorite moments of the story were when her parents would talk about Americans; it was great seeing how other cultures look at the United States—always a humbling thing.
- The teenager issues. This book touched on quite a few issues, in a sort of surface-level way, some that many teenagers will face in their lives and others that were unique to Julia because of her culture. There was suicide, sex, depression, the drug cartels in Mexico, abortion, and homosexuality. I enjoyed reading about how a teenager responded to them.
Here’s the opening, which hooks the reader immediately:
“What’s surprised me most about seeing my sister dead is the lingering smirk on her face. Her pale lips are turned up ever so slightly, and someone has filled in her patchy eyebrows with a black pencil. The top half of her face is angry—like she’s ready to stab someone—and the bottom half is almost smug. This is not the Olga I knew. Olga was as meek and fragile as a baby bird.”
The above is an affiliate link. I only recommend books that I personally enjoy. I actually don’t even talk about the books I don’t enjoy, because I’d rather forget I ever wasted time reading them. But if you’re ever curious whether I’ve read a book and whether I liked or disliked it, don’t hesitate to ask.
