BOOK REVIEW: Perfect Chemistry by Simone Elkeles

Perfect Chemistry by Simone Elkeles

(Goodreads)

Where to begin...

It's not often that I read or watch a film starring a Mexican main character, and it's even more rare for it to be a love story (at least in mainstream American pop culture). Needless to say I was excited after reading the premise and seeing the 4-star average review.

Boy, what a let down.

Meet Alex Fuentes. High school senior, auto body mechanic, and part of the local gang known as the Latino Blood. His bad boy 'tough' exterior is emphasized by his multiple arm tattoos and fit physique (his abs are described on the regular as 'washboard abs'). Alex is as much of a stereotype as you can get: his father was killed in a drug deal, his family crossed over from Mexico, he smokes/drinks regularly, and has had plenty of sex.

Then there's Brittany Ellis. Brittany is not far from the 'rich white girl' stereotype. Blond hair, blue eyes, and a "hot bod". The novel really emphasizes that although her life is seemingly perfect, it's anything but. Her mother is a perfectionist who cares more about what the neighbors will say than her own daughter's feelings and her father is a workaholic who appears for no more than 5 pages. The Ellis family has a 'dirty little secret' in the form of Brittany's older sister, Shelley, who has cerebral palsy and is rarely taken outside the house.

I don't dislike the fact that Alex is a middle-class gangbanger or that Brittany is a rich popular cheerleader. What I dislike (and was so disappointed by) is how one-dimensional these characters are. While there's growth in them, they literally go from "I'm in a gang" to "I'm quitting the gang" and with Brittany it's "I need to keep up an image" to "I don't care what anyone thinks, f-you mom". I stared at the pages thinking, where's the progression?? When did they decide to change??

What honestly had me on the verge of tossing the book across the room every five minutes was the HORRIBLE SPANISH. People who speak Spanish and English do.not.talk.like this. We don't choose random words to say in Spanish in the middle of our sentences and we do not immediately translate those words!

Some highlights:

"Si, everything's bien." (33) 

"She might be a mamacita, but she ain't got nothing on this hombre." (51) 

"'Brittany Ellis is out of  your league amigo. You might be a pretty boy, but you're one hundred percent Mexicano and she's as white as Wonder Bread.' A junior named Leticia Gonzales walks by us. [...] Paco nudges me. 'Now she's a bonita Mexicana and definitely in your league.'" (54) 

"I'm in trouble. Tengo un problema grande." (120)

It really frustrates me because it's clear that there wasn't someone who spoke fluent Spanish working on this book. The grammar is sometimes incredible cringeworthy and there's even a couple of misspellings sprinkled in the book (seriously??). And I thought it was really strange that Brittany only asked once for something to be translated, did she just use context clues all the other times?

Also, can books and media please stop describing Latinos as spicy and fiery? We're not food! (Though there is a scene where Brittany has chilaquiles and sticks her tongue in a cup of cold water and I was like...yo...chilaquiles are not meant to be that spicy.)

I honestly don't think Brittany and Alex were really in love, sure they found someone that could see past their public image, but it didn't feel like they ever really knew each other. Here's a great moment:

Brittany rests her chin on my chest. "You're going to quit the Blood now, right?" 

My body stiffens, "No," I say, my voice filed with torment. Hell, why'd she go and ask me that? 

"Everything's different now, Alex. We made love." (315)

I could talk for hours about the numerous ways this book let me down and quite honestly, offended me in more ways than one. Oh and in the epilogue Brittany and Alex develop a medication to halt the progression of Alzheimers.

Someone let me saber if the Perfect Chemistry series gets mejor, because I don't see myself coming near a Simone Elkeles novel anytime soon. Know what I'm sayin', amigo? Me entiendes?

Book Review: I'll Give You the Sun by Jandy Nelson

I'll Give You the Sun by Jandy Nelson

(Goodreads)

Jude and her twin brother, Noah, are incredibly close. At thirteen, isolated Noah draws constantly and is falling in love with the charismatic boy next door, while daredevil Jude cliff-dives and wears red-red lipstick and does the talking for both of them.  

But three years later, Jude and Noah are barely speaking. Something has happened to wreck the twins in different and dramatic ways . . . until Jude meets a cocky, broken, beautiful boy, as well as someone else—an even more unpredictable new force in her life.  

The early years are Noah's story to tell. The later years are Jude's. What the twins don't realize is that they each have only half the story, and if they could just find their way back to one another, they’d have a chance to remake their world.

Sometimes it's hard to gather my thoughts when I feel like I've been thrown into a hurricane, spun around a couple thousand times, and spat out in the span of three seconds. That's more or less the equivalent of reading this ~400 page book in three days.

I seem to be on a roll reading books that alternate chapters between either characters or time periods (Beside Myself, Finding Amelia, Hide). I'll Give You the Sun actually gave me both! Noah tells the past and Jude tells the present and in every chapter you find out a little bit of what happens in between. One thing that I loved and hated at the same time was how long each chapter was. I could feel myself getting so immersed into the story when the chapter would end at what seemed like the best part. I definitely had a lot of urges to skip the next chapter (mostly Jude's) so I could peek at what was next.

Jude and Noah are some of the best siblings I've read in a while. And it's not because they're perfect, or anywhere near that at all. Jude and Noah show the ugly side of sibling jealousy; the backstabbing, the lies, the ugly tendencies you can't hide. Their luggage of flaws definitely made them feel real and relatable.

Noah, without a doubt, made me feel like I was in high school, falling in love for the first time. Jandy Nelson did an amazing job at capturing those fluttering feelings that honestly, made my heart skip a couple of beats. His unique way of seeing the world definitely captured the mind of a young artist who can't stop thinking about what to create next.

Jude took a while to grow on me. Like Noah, she's artistic but in a non-obvious way. And to be quite honest, she's a bit of a mess when we first meet her. It was hard to not to groan at how much of a teenager she was being and it isn't until later that I could really understand why she was being like that. However, it's incredibly beautiful to see her unique way of coping with her circumstances (spoiler alert: her mother's death).

Without a doubt, I'd read this book again (and I'm looking forward to the film adaptation, can they please get Antonio Banderas to play G?). There's nothing extraordinary that happens, but the writing magnifies it in a way that makes you feel like you're reading something remarkable.

Memorable Quotes 

Noah

"It's like being kissed by a feather, no, smoother, a petal. Too soft. We're petal people. I think about the earthquake kiss in the alcove and want to cry again. This time because I am sad. And scared. And because my skin has never fit this badly before." (134) 

Jude

"I kept thinking, it's okay, I can handle this. I can. It's okay, okay, okay. But it wasn't and I couldn't. I didn't know you could get buried in your own silence." (47)

Book Review: Firsts by Laurie Elizabeth Flynn

Firsts by Laurie Elizabeth Flynn 

(Goodreads)

Seventeen-year-old Mercedes Ayres has an open-door policy when it comes to her bedroom, but only if the guy fulfills a specific criteria: he has to be a virgin. Mercedes lets the boys get their awkward, fumbling first times over with, and all she asks in return is that they give their girlfriends the perfect first time- the kind Mercedes never had herself.  

Keeping what goes on in her bedroom a secret has been easy- so far. Her absentee mother isn’t home nearly enough to know about Mercedes’ extracurricular activities, and her uber-religious best friend, Angela, won’t even say the word “sex” until she gets married. But Mercedes doesn’t bank on Angela’s boyfriend finding out about her services and wanting a turn- or on Zach, who likes her for who she is instead of what she can do in bed.  

When Mercedes’ perfect system falls apart, she has to find a way to salvage her reputation and figure out where her heart really belongs in the process. Funny, smart, and true-to-life, FIRSTS is a one-of-a-kind young adult novel about growing up.

Thanks to St. Martin's Press at NetGalley for providing me with an eARC!

Oh Mercy.

Mercedes Ayres means well. But for a seventeen year old who has her fair share of troubles and secrets, the meaning of 'meaning well' might be more than slightly skewed.

And that's exactly what I enjoyed about Flynn's debut novel. The characters in Firsts are naïve, resentful, emotional, sexual, contradicting, flawed, and about a dozen other things; in other words, they're humans, and more specifically, teenagers. (And I feel like I just used my comma quota for my review with that sentence lol).

Mercedes' extra-curricular devirginizing activity is definitely strange but it's her own, it's something that gives her power and keeps her afloat. One of the aspects that I think makes her a strong character is how carefully she crafts her image to the outside world. Others only see what she wants them to see and I think that's really powerful for a teenage girl. And even though I have an almost non existent interest for chemistry, I really enjoyed Mercedes' love for it. It's a theme that I felt really bloomed in the novel and went well with her journey.

I definitely think that one more draft of this novel would have made it unforgettable. It's definitely a great debut for Flynn, there's no doubt about that; but I would have liked to know more about (possible spoiler alert) Mercedes' relationship with her father, her friendship with Angela, and her MIT aspirations (end possible spoilers). It's the little snippets inserted here and there that would have made a world of a difference.

Nonetheless, I devoured about 75% of the book after a lazy start (mostly on my part) and I would look forward to seeing a film adaptation one day. 

Memorable Quote 

My hands start to shake uncontrollably. The sound of my own heartbeat is everywhere, the sound track to my failure. Thump, thump. Coward. Weakling. Thump, thump. Victim. Liar. I told myself that nobody would ever control me, not after Luke. But here I am, in a heap on the floor all over again. Nothing has changed. I haven’t changed.

.5