Melissa de la Cruz

It feels like there's no ground beneath me, like everything I've ever done has been a lie. Like I'm breaking apart, shattering. Who am I? Where do I belong? Jasmine de los Santos has always done what's expected of her. Pretty and popular, she's studied hard, made her Filipino immigrant parents proud and is ready to reap the rewards in the form of a full college scholarship. And then everything shatters. A national scholar award invitation compels her parents to reveal the truth: their visas expired years ago. Her entire family is illegal. That means no scholarships, maybe no college at all and the very real threat of deportation. For the first time, Jasmine rebels, trying all those teen things she never had time for in the past. Even as she's trying to make sense of her new world, it's turned upside down by Royce Blakely, the charming son of a high-ranking congressman. Jasmine no longer has any idea where--or if--she fits into the American Dream. All she knows is that she's not giving up. Because when the rules you lived by no longer apply, the only thing to do is make up your own.

Something in Between

Melissa Palmer

Book #91 Read in 2016
Something in Between by Melissa De La Cruz

Jasmine is a top scholar, cheerleading captain, hospital volunteer and all around success story. She wins a national college scholarship and is extremely happy. Her parents--not so much....as they must tell Jasmine that she cannot accept the scholarship as their Visas had expired and they are undocumented immigrants and not US citizen. Add to this storyline a romance with a rich senator's son and you have an interesting read. This book is very timely given all the current news and is more than just a teenage romance. I recommend it for high school girls. I received a copy of this book from Amazon Vine in exchange for a honest review.

Steph Lodico

Looots of mixed feelings on this one. There are a lot of books I wish existed when I was younger that I read as an adult and are very much worth it. This is a book that was better than most of the other books I read in high school, but was not worth it as an adult. The themes are important, but I thought the book itself was subpar like the publishers thought its underrepresented themes would mean the quality could be lower. 

For one, I was surprised to see the angle that the author wrote from considering how personal the story is to her. It almost feels like it’s meant for white liberals - it’s a bit white savioristic, patriotic, and taps into immigrant exceptionalism rather than basic human rights. It also erases indigenous + enslavement history in the Americas with the whole “this country was made by immigrants” and “everyone that’s here was once an immigrant” talk that’s so popular among liberals. The protagonist, while sweet and likable, was way too perfect on paper. Sure, she had flaws and made mistakes socially and personally, but the whole premise of the book is that she deserves to be here because she’s exceptional, and that’s a really dangerous narrative in my opinion. 

It’s also quite unrealistic. As someone with experience in politics, I found myself quite disappointed over and over again by the representation of the political arena. The protagonist’s story is hardly relatable to any teen that finds themselves undocumented and at risk of deportation. The author somehow made an incredibly heavy topic feel like a cheesy movie. I thought she was laying the foundation for some really nuanced points about American politics at first - with the president’s comment that a lot of politicians don’t actually believe the things they support publicly against the backdrop of Royce’s “kind” congressman father, the author had the perfect opportunity to dissect the morality of his positioning. Instead, the story put a rosy glow on a Republican congressman who uses racist rhetoric to get ahead, and who, in the real world, would absolutely not accept his son’s love life the way he did in the story. And her family is just…ok with him. 

Also, several other characters’ racist behavior is explained away by them having a hard time. It was really hard to read some of this stuff. And the characters’ lack of understanding of the consequences of being undocumented was jarring - a real opportunity was missed to teach people a lot about a status like that. 

It was too long and simultaneously not enough. It was immigrant story, coming of age, and romance, but the final product wasn’t more than a sum of its parts because none of the parts were done justice. I think the author just tried to pack too much into the story but didn’t have the guts to tackle it the way it needed to be. 

Overall, it was a miss for me. The characters made me stick through it - the protagonist’s family had me needing to take breaks to laugh and I did like the love interest too, even if underdeveloped. I really appreciated the glimpse of Filipino culture as well. And I’ll give it three stars because there’s not enough YA featuring undocumented immigrant stories so this needs to be heard and I did read this pretty quickly…but I hope that one day there are more stories representing average people who don’t have connections (Congressman for a boyfriend’s dad, rich family friend), who aren’t stereotypically American (loves the Olympics! cheer captain! thinks America is a great nation! etc.), who aren’t wildly successful at everything they do (literally meets the president for this) are portrayed as equally deserving of a life wherever suits them best.

Palak

Good book! The only complaints I would have is that the writing felt a little immature at times and the romance was somewhat unrealistic. But I love the concept and the themes. :) 3.5/5

Becky

3.5 stars

This was a very enjoyable YA read about a very important issue which affects a lot of countries. Immigration is something which affects people's lives and something politicians like to bring out to give them a talking point on their campaigns and garner them votes and it's nice to read a book which approaches the subject intelligently and passionately and you can see that passion in every word as this is something Melissa de la Cruz cares about.

Despite the very enjoyable read on something that affects so many Americans (and yes I say Americans and not illegal immigrants) I do feel there is one thing which let this book down and that was the level of drama in it. I cared far more about Jas's family struggles trying to get legal status than I did about her friend drama with Kayla but most importantly her romance. I hated hat her romantic troubles seemed to take over in the book and sometimes overshadow the actual important and relevant issue in her life. That's not to say I didn't like the romance because I did, I just wish it played a smaller role in the story.

In the end this was a very enjoyable read and I would recommend it to others but be aware of the romance if you're not feeling romantically inclined when reading.

Shannon Leigh Williams

This book has a combination of pros and cons that made it land simply in the middle of my rating scale. While the topics discussed, such as immigration and its relation to both family and politics, are important and valuable, I really did not enjoy the way this story was told. Jasmine is a selfish, stubborn, and immature main character, and I constantly found myself annoyed with her. Furthermore, the romance in this book felt superficial and was SO. Damn. Predictable. The writing style was unfortunately not a redeeming quality for this book, either. The narration and dialogue were cheesy and fragmented, as if the book had been written in a rush. I enjoyed gaining some insight as to what it could be like to be an undocumented immigrant, and this part of the story held a lot of value to me, but other aspects of the novel detracted from that for me.

bianca

james

skim haunts

Noelia Abreu

anna

madeline payer

rach

From the No.1 New York Times bestselling author of many critically acclaimed and award-winning novels for readers of all ages comes a thought-provoking and timely novel about immigration, family, friendship, and finding out where you belong. Jasmine de los Santos has always done what's expected of her. Pretty and popular, she's studied hard, made her Filipino immigrant parents proud, and is ready to reap the rewards in the form of a full college scholarship. And then everything shatters. A national scholar award invitation compels her parents to reveal the truth: their visas expired years ago. Her entire family is illegal. That means no scholarships, maybe no college at all, and the very real threat of deportation. But Jasmine won't give up. Because when the rules you lived by no longer apply, the only thing to do is make up your own.

Something in Between

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