Sofi Mendoza’s Guide to Getting Lost in Mexico

50 Books by Authors of Color: Book 43
Title: Sofi Mendoza’s Guide to Getting Lost In Mexico
Author: Malin Alegria
Medium: Book

Early on I criticized this author for her portrayal of both Sofi from Sofi Mendoza’s Guide to Getting Lost in Mexico and Estrella in Estrella’s Quinceanera as being vapid and I think to some extent that criticism still stands. To me, it reads very much like an adult writing about a teenager doing and saying things that as adults think teenagers do and say. Granted, I’m not a teenager any longer myself, so I might be a little slanted in my thinking. Not to mention, the term “Abercrombie hottie” is used seriously, which, I’ll just let that statement stand for itself.

Sofi Mendoza’s Guide to Getting Lost in Mexico starts out with Sofi, a Mexican born American girl with strict “old school” parents. Sofi is a good student and has a life plan that includes her marrying a boy named Nick, her ultimate “Papi Chulo” (and this phrase is used to death in this book) driving an adorable mini-cooper and being rich. She doesn’t get why her parents are so stuffy and make her do stuff like clean the bathroom. Sofi, knowing that her parents won’t let her spend a weekend in Tijuana with her friends staying at a beach house, decides to go anyways, and tells her parents that she’s staying over a girlfriend’s house.

As you can expect, this goes totally wrong. Sofi, Olivia and Taylor make it across the border with no problem and operation Papi Chulo gets underway. Only it turns out Nick, the “Abercrombie Hottie” is a total pig who tries to grab her “hot Latina ass”. Devastated Sofi and her friends decide to head back to America, but Sofi’s green card is actually a fake.

Sofi didn’t actually know her green card was fake and is confused and horrified that she is forced to stay in Mexico possibly for an extended period of time until her parents and their lawyer manage to figure something out, which, since their unlawful residents, isn’t going to be any time soon. Sofi is lucky and is able to stay with her Uncle and Aunt and their three children in their small house. She manages to bond with her cousins but has her heart set on returning to America at any cost.

This book was so much better than I was expecting from the extremely vapid first chapter. It’s still full of the “teenagers are stupid” attitude which I wasn’t fond of, but at least Sofi grows in a believable fashion.

Overall Rating: 4/5 it was silly and juvenile but I liked it.

Kindred

50 Books by Authors of Color: Book 42
Title: Kindred
Author: Octavia E. Butler
Medium: Book

Several different people advised me to only read this book on warm sunny days when I had someone to cuddle me after reading each chapter. I didn’t heed their advice and read Kindred at night on a dreary December day, not because I didn’t believe them, but because I couldn’t wait to read it. I had read parts of Kindred before, but never more than a few pages here and there, but once I sat down to actually read it, I finished it in a few hours because I couldn’t put it down.

Dana, an African American woman living in the 1970s, has just celebrated her twenty-sixth birthday when something strange starts to happen to her. Inexplicably, she is sitting in her home with her new husband one moment, and in the next she finds herself next to a river where a young white boy is drowning. Instinctively, Dana saves him, but finds herself rewarded by having a shot gun to her face and being called a racial slur.

As Dana continues to travel back and forth to save the boy she learns is named Rufus, she discovers that she is not only being transported through space, but also through time, as Rufus is the son of a plantation owner in the midst of slavery. Dana, knowing her family history quickly realizes that Rufus is one of her ancestors and saving his life is crucial to her own self-preservation.  Each time she travels it is to save Rufus’ life, often as a direct result of his own stupidity, and while in a normal person that would instill feelings of gratitude and appreciation, however, Rufus isn’t a normal person. Rufus, as the son of a wealthy slave and plantation owner views Dana and the other African Americans as little more than property.

As this book goes on I kind of want Dana to stop saving Rufus, self-preservation be damned. Knowing that Rufus is one of Dana’s ancestors, I was kind of expecting him to turn into an abolitionist and marry a black woman; instead Rufus pretty much is the exact opposite. He really turns out to be a horrible person which really just made me like the book more because Dana was really wrestling with saving Rufus or not saving Rufus.

Read this book, it’s fantastic.

Overall Rating: 5/5

50 Books by Authors of Color: Book 41
Title: If I Bring You Roses
Author: Marisel Vera
Medium: Book
 

If I Bring You Roses is one of those books where if you read the back of the book, you’ll feel like it’s very long and arduous. So, I’m going to tell you not to read the back of the book. The story starts out with Felicidad’s mother having a mental breakdown and climbing up on the roof of their one room shack in Puerto Rico. Felicidad, the dutiful daughter takes up her mother’s work, feeding the children, doing the wash, even embroidering well into the night when her hands are blistered. She’s such a good kid, it’s absolutely heartbreaking when her dad decides to send her off to live with her Aunt and Uncle who live in the city.

Felicidad works in the family’s bakery, and by “work” I mean slaves. She is treated relatively well but it is clear that she is not a proper member of the family, and is instead treated as a servant. Her Aunt even insists that she calls her “Senora” instead of Tia. It is while working in the bakery Felicidad meets Anibal. Anibal is a Puerto Rican who has been living in the United States for years who is home to help with his families coffee bean harvest and because his mother has marrying off Anibal off.

Originally, his mother wants him to marry Felicidad, but after meeting with the girl and realizing that she really is more of a servant than a family member, Anibal’s mother is against him marrying Felicidad. Unfortunately, her match making skills have worked too well and Anibal falls hard for Felicidad and marries her.

Giving Felicidad time to spend with her family before moving to the United States, Anibal returns to his old life, one filled with fast women. In his mind, he loves Felicidad, but he continues to believe that he is not ready for a wife, spurning Felicidad when she does arrive. Felicidad, raised to be always obedient and keep the peace, doesn’t know what to think of her formerly passionate husband’s distance and has no idea how to fight for what she wants.

Both Felicidad and Anibal are filled with desire for each other, but they have to fight to figure out what they want from themselves and from each other.

Overall Rating: 4/5