I Am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter

If the middle part of the book had been edited out i really think i would have cried and found it overall beautiful but the first half felt a forced cliche but the second half - wow, sanchez’s writing and Julia’s voice are stronger than ever *anyway everything is subjective at the end of the day 🥹

Noemi Gonzalez

Eva Ströberg

This book touched very deep inside me. I’m not Mexican but growing up with the same kind of overbearing mother and a taciturn father.

I can relate with almost everything that is in the book, me being the rebel, me wanting to get away from the family and the town we lived in and everything else. So the book became personal to me.

This book taught me also that there’s a back story that we don’t always know, as we could never fully know or understand someone that we thought we know.

Bria

This is one of the best coming of age books I've read in a while and I always love the idea of people getting to know their culture.

Amelia C 

My first YA book! This book had me feeling so
Nostalgic and melancholy. I felt sad, and inspired by Julia’s resilience and also her intense feelings of hopelessness and anxiety. Yes she came off as antagonistic and prickly but she’s a teenager so par for the course. A portrait of family- each member with their own pain and crushing secrets. And a reminder of how important it is to pay attention to, take care of our mental health. Great read!

jerm

read for school! but omg i loved it and i think julia and her mother's relationship was very interesting, as well as the whole thing with her figuring out olga's life, and what she eventually ends up finding out!!!! very cool stuff

2.5... i wanted Olga to be a lesbian like sorry 

Magdalena

HelyaSameni

I felt good reading the book but was waiting for a more captivating ending. Maybe a moment of understanding for Julia or her mom, maybe a profound conversation. Anyways, reading the book made me feel good and relaxed.

Stephanie Ridiculous

Pros:
-highlights MH struggles among teens, and especially among Latina teens
-grapples with some heavy topics that teens are often trying to navigate on their own
-has some MH resources listed in the back
-touches on these things without ever being graphic

Cons:
-Nothing really happens for the first ~65% of the book
-I wish Julia had made the connection between how much the lying of her family members negatively impacted her and how much her own lying was negatively impacting others

Andrea

— I think it does send a great message but maybe things could have been handled better. Maybe in a less extreme way, though I think it was made extreme on purpose precisely to send the message but I don’t know.

— I think it’s shows perfectly how awful it is to have to live up to your parents’ expectations, specially when you have a relative that may come out as “perfect” and you have to compete with that image, feeling like you’re not enough.

— Istg Julia is one of the most annoying characters I’ve ever read. I’m not talking about her mommy and daddy issues (because that’s completely understandable) but that she’s kind of obnoxious and extremely confrontational.

— At first the whole family dynamic was relatable, but then the parents (specially the mom) started to become really annoying, to the point where it kind of became unbelievable that a parent could be like that. Though I don’t discard it because you never know.

— I won’t talk about the mexican representation because I’m not mexican neither a USA immigrant. But I will say that the depiction of the whole latinx culture stereotypical, like it portrays all the bad stuff. I’m not saying it doesn’t happen but Latin-America is more than gangs, shootings, poverty and insecurity.

— It had so much inner monologue to the point where it became boring. Plus, I’m not even a big fan of contemporary books that are not romance, but this one hooked me with the whole Olga mystery.

Jeff Brown 

I did have to take a look at other reviews to make sure I wasn’t too hard on the main character. Wow, a lot of people disliked her!

I thought early and later, Julia was hilarious, despite her sister having just died. In the middle, when it seemed Julia was moving on, she became annoying. But as she was moving towards acceptance, life became real to her and eventually led her to a direction of growth.

Enjoyable yet painful in periods, a strong book that any teen, especially one connected to another country, should read.

Nadine 

YA suitable for HS level. 
Very well written teen novel with a strong authentic diverse voice. I can see parents baulking at this as it covers all their worst fears for their children: partying, casual drug use, sex, affairs with an older married person, illegal migration and suicide.
But it is a powerful book talking about How and why generations don’t and can’t talk to each other and the high costs of silence, assumptions and generalised fear.

Corey White

I wasn’t overly interested in this book for the first, maybe 1/4th of it, I found Julia, the main character, to be hard to like, and the narration of her days and thoughts a little rough. But something kept me in the book, and as it went along I found myself appreciating the story as a whole, and eventually even Julia grew on me. 
The sorry gave me a heavy dose of humbling perspective, and for that I am grateful.

Samantha Seeman

Yikes. That about sums up my thoughts on this book. It was one of those books that I had to push really hard to get through, it was on the cusp of a DNF. The story was all over the place. First the author punches you in the face with the death of the main character’s sister IN THE FIRST LINE OF THE BOOK. Then it is (what feels like) a never ending string of unnecessary swearing peppered throughout the text. Julia (our main character), is selfish, and bratty, and complains about EVERYTHING. She is SUPER judgmental about EVERYONE and it kinda gets on your nerves the entire time. The story itself did not feel like it flowed very well either. There are parts that dragged on, and then months pass by without you even really noticing. I feel like some of the things that happened in this book were a little extreme, and that Julia (while I understand is supposed to be dealing with trauma) reacted in cringe-worthy ways. I also feel like other characters in this book reacted to her in unbelievable ways. I just really wanted to know what happened with the sister, which is really the only reason why I kept reading. There are rape, and suicide trigger warnings for this book as well, for those who are ambitious enough to try it out. I honestly have no idea how it was considered for a National Book Medal. Clearly I have strong negative feelings about this book, but I did like the parts where Julia went to Mexico, as well as Conner’s character.

Paige Green

Rating: 4.5/5



Genre: YA Contemporary



Recommended Age: 14+ (some sexual content, confrontational scenes, depression and anxiety, death)



Pages: 340



Author Website



Amazon Link


Disclaimer: I received a free copy of this book from KidLitExchange and the publishing company. All opinions are my own.



Synopsis: Perfect Mexican daughters do not go away to college. And they do not move out of their parents’ house after high school graduation. Perfect Mexican daughters never abandon their family.
 
But Julia is not your perfect Mexican daughter. That was Olga’s role. 
 
Then a tragic accident on the busiest street in Chicago leaves Olga dead and Julia left behind to reassemble the shattered pieces of her family. And no one seems to acknowledge that Julia is broken, too. Instead, her mother seems to channel her grief into pointing out every possible way Julia has failed.
 
But it’s not long before Julia discovers that Olga might not have been as perfect as everyone thought. With the help of her best friend Lorena, and her first kiss, first love, first everything boyfriend Connor, Julia is determined to find out. Was Olga really what she seemed? Or was there more to her sister’s story? And either way, how can Julia even attempt to live up to a seemingly impossible ideal?



I thought this book was really touching and sweet, which would make it a perfect book to cry to. And honestly I did. I thought this book was amazingly well done. I loved the way the story was written with Spanish and English, some explained and some not. I loved the writing and how well the story flowed. The pacing and the plot was well done and the world building was as well. I also felt I learned a lot about the Mexican culture and I feel smarter for reading this book.



However, I do feel that the main character was way too confrontational. Although I could see where it works well for her character, it just made me not connect with her as much. I also had an issue with understanding why education was less important than family. I mean I can assume things, but I don’t want to. If any Mexican readers here could explain this to me I’d love to know why.



Verdict: Other than a couple of issues on my part, I feel this book was amazing and a book you should read if you’re looking for a diverse book on Mexican culture.

Jeni Enjaian

I wanted so much to love this book. All last year, I kept seeing so many of my female Mexican students check this book out from the library and read voraciously. (I teach in a school with a majority Hispanic population.) I constantly search for books that appeal to their culture and life experiences and thought this would be one that I would whole-heartedly recommend.
I loved Julia. In fact, I saw one of my students mirrored, almost perfectly, in her. However, the constant swearing kept jolting me out of the narrative. I could never truly engage in the novel. I understand that language like this is an everyday thing in the vocabulary of my students. (I hear it quite frequently from them.) However, the crass nature of Julia's language detracted from her character's ardent desire to become a writer, from her frequent consumption of classic novels. The two things were incongruent and I, as a reader, struggled to reconcile them.
I also wanted to know more about Olga. After all, her death, referenced in the opening page, is what inspires the title and supposedly a lot of Julia's own actions.
I really wish I could recommend this book. Like I said to start, I really wanted to like this book but I just could not.

Leelynn Brady

Find this review and more on my blog Sometimes Leelynn Reads.


  “How do we tie our shoes, brush our hair, drink coffee, wash the dishes, and go to sleep, pretending everything is fine? How do we laugh and feel happiness despite the buried things growing inside? How can we do that day after day?” 


I've been doing a bad job at letting my readers know which books should have trigger warnings, so I'm going to do one for this book: please be warned that this book has death, and attempted suicide.

This book starts off with the aftermath of Julia's sister Olga's death. It wasn't a pretty death either, and the entire Reyes family is still feeling the effects of what happened. None of Olga's family was with her when she died, and I think it's safe to say that she died instantly, so there was no chance to save her. Either way, the Reyes family lost their eldest daughter, and there's just no healing from it.

See, Olga was the perfect Mexican daughter, according to Julia. Olga stayed at home to be with her parents, went to a community college close to their home in Chicago, cooked and cleaned almost as well as their mother, and was just pretty much better in every single way. According to Julia, anyway. Julia is anything but perfect and is nothing like her older sister. Julia is rude (or at least very, very blunt and can come off as rude), wants to go to college in New York, and can't cook or clean to save her life. So when Olga dies and her mother starts being even harder on Julia than before, it just seems to come crashing down around her.


  “I don’t know why I’ve always been like this, why the smallest things make me ache inside. There’s a poem I read once, titled “The World Is Too Much with Us,” and I guess that is the best way to describe the feeling—the world is too much with me.”


This book is about death and learning how to deal with death. This book shows that time does not always heal all wounds and that sometimes the death of a family member - one that hid secrets up until the day she died - is too difficult to deal with alone. Not only did this book resonate with me because of Julia's actions later on in the book, but also the Mexican culture that we got to witness throughout this book. I can really see how my Chamorro and Spanish culture is similar to the Mexican culture. I could see my grandma in Julia's grandma, and my Chamorro family in her Mexican family.

I definitely recommend this one.

Kourtney

I went into this book very intrigued - a sister who dies with a secret past from a culture that is not my own? I couldn't wait to start it...only...the mysterious past was brought up, and then forgotten about. Oh it would be brought up every now and again as a throwaway comment. Like a "oh yeah I need to do something to figure it out, but instead let me do this." The premise of the book had nothing to do with her sister's mysterious past, but rather how she grieved, and struggled with her parents, her culture, and her future. Had this been listed in the summary more prominently, I would not have been vastly disappointed.

Jobananareads

** spoiler alert **
           ok so i was so on the fence about reading this book, i was praying to the lord almighty that it was not going to be a novela in book format and i am so happy that this was not the case, literally the only other book , or author writing, books covering this topic are the Benjamin Alire Sáenz books , i’m aware that they’re not the only ones but believe it or not i only have like three or four other book with latino rep and that’s not nearly enough so i was going into this not having high hopes for some reason and boy was i ever wrong.

to star from the beginning when meet the Reyes Family is not on the greatest day because they just lost Olga our protagonist’s sister. Julia, who, i’m not going to lie i was iffy about because on the first half on the book she was just getting on my nerves and i was just like “SHUT UP ALREADY!” now this may be also partly because i listened to the audiobook and the actress was just like…. i couldn’t with her, but then Julia was showing a more humane side that i really loved, the way she described her relationship with her mom rang so many bells with me. and one thing i do have to aplaude Julia is that she didn’t want be that stereotype (yes that’s gonna be the word of the day) she wanted to be her own person and to me and for Julia to be 15 and i guess to some extent see herself on her mom and be like i don’t want this for myself props to you girl

the esteritype goes that we latinos are loving, warm and always ready to feed you (and that’s true not get me wrong) but we also like any other family fight, mourn and can be actually pretty stubborn so reading that kind of disfuncional dynamic was, to me at least , super real. like i was reading Julia and her mom fight and i was listening to me and my mom fight.

the whole plot with her sister was in my opinion kinda irrelevant at points like one minute we’re with Julia and whatever she was doing that whenever it would pop up it was as if the author was like “ oh right we’re doing this also” and we would go to Olga’s school or her room or her job. and i didn’t care for the plot twist at the end ether but i loved how the author handle the aftermath with how distant Julia’s parents were after Olga died ,again it felt real

I loved Lorena and Juanga so much! being the best friends on those first 7 chapters they were the ones calling Julia on her bs and i loved that!

i really love the commentary on how it is to live on the states as kids of immigrants, i love how when Julia applying to go to school she was scared that someone would call on her parents and on what it’s like to cross the border, i also love the commentary on mental health and how this one tiny little can set something off. i feel like i need to say this though this book has a few trigger warnings on rape and depression and suicide on anxiety

as someone who also deals with anxiety i feel is an accurate portrait of it, we’re on Julia’s mind the whole time and those monoges are just so spot on it was scary

I loved being in Mexico with Julia (i’m sorry i did) we touch on some heavy stuff there too but i feel like was at my grandpa’s it felt like a big hug so i loved that part

the few stereotypes that we find in this book i love, there’s this part where Julia is talking to this guy and we all feel he wants to ask if she’s latina or something to that effect and Julia is like “ so you want to know what kind of brown i am “ and i was laughing so hard i hand to cover my face on the bus to work.

Abigail F

Quick review:
Lovely multicultural novel with insights into Mexican culture (most of which my friends went on to discuss for hours). The story of girl trying to find her place in a culture she doesn't feel she fits into, especially when she is following the footsteps of her recently passed, perfect older sister. With themes such as loss, depression, love, and family, this book sometimes feels like it is trying to fit too much in at once. My biggest critique is that it started feeling like a mystery novel, then romance, then mental health commentary, then back to mystery-romance. Overall well written.

Katie

Overall I wasn't really into this book but there were some good parts to it. For example,

  His name is Juan García, but he goes by Juanga, which is the nickname of Juan Gabriel, Mexico's most beloved singer . . . How can he compare himself to him? . . . So of course I hate him immediately.

As well as this on the same page,

  Our sub, Mr. Blankenship, breathes loudly through his mouth and wears a pilling green sweater two sizes too small. I can see his hairy belly when he lifts his arms. I don't know where the hell they find these people.

Those were just amazing, and remind me of comments my sister would legitimately make towards other people. But while Julia's snarky attitude got a laugh out of me at parts, at other parts, it was a bit much. I also felt a lot of language in the book was really sexist (even though Julia is self-proclaimed against sexism). Early on in the book, Julia comes across her sister's underwear, which she constantly refers to as "skanky." She gets a bit less slut-shamey as the book goes on, and does openly chastise a man when he calls a woman a "hooker," but she never reflects on her own attitude and behaviors.

There were also two lines in the book that were just so unnecessary... in the first chapter, where she refers to a literal clown as "looking like a r*pist" and in Chapter 18, when she wants to emphasize how much people are shocked at her comeback to school and says, "People keep staring at me like I'm a quadriplegic or something." (Did nobody realize this is super ableist????)

Juanga and Lorena were both pretty interesting characters and I would be open to reading a spin-off just based on them. Connor, Julia's main love interest, was so insta-lovey and he was about as deep as a boiled potato. (I'm not even sure if I've got his name right to be honest, also stealing the boiled potato line from the book as well)

It's an important book which will resonate with a lot of people, but unfortunately, not for me.

I Am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter

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