Welcome to Litsy!

Falls into the precocious kids coming of age genre. I struggle with this genre because it‘s hard to pull off while still seeming genuine. Sal, Sam, and Fito are great characters and so is Sal‘s adoptive father Vicente. The book shines as they patiently help each other navigate hard times, but Sal‘s narration reads more like a message Saenz is trying to get out than a real teenage boy‘s perspective. Sweet, if heavy-handed, I still give it a pick.

I liked this, though wouldn‘t say I loved it. It‘s sort of a coming-of-age YA novel with a mix of good stuff and bad stuff all happening at once. Sort of.

#JumpIntoJanuary #LifeIsBeautiful I love this book!
@Eggs

This was a bit of a roller coaster for me... parts of it were so good and I couldn‘t put it down and other parts seemed to drag on and didn‘t add much to the story, in my opinion. Overall, not my favorite.

i really liked this book. read it all in one night.

Such a sweet story about grief and identity and family. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

This passage in particular wrecked me. 💔

A quiet 🌧 morning covering the front desk while all the students are out of the building. Haven‘t had the opportunity to read in a long while because the flu has been ravaging my staff and I have been doing nothing but working, substituting and sleeping to try and not get sick. #februarybreakcantcomesoonenough #teachersoflitsy #yareading #fridayreads

Another gem from Saenz. In this one Sal is trying to figure himself & his new temper out while he helps his friends deal with their tragedys, his gay father is dating again, his Mima is dying of cancer & there is a letter from his mother who died when he was three. It's a very moving & engaging story. Also Sal's father, Vicente is fantastic 💙
#BBRC #TeenAngst #AuthenticVoice
@LibrarianRyan @RachelO
#Jennyis30 #chronicillness
@jenniferw88

"I guess there were some women who just knew how to make tortillas, who liked making them, who fed people with their art."

?? How easy would it be to trade the word "women" with "people" and how much less degrading?

5: A coming of age story about death, family, adoption, and nurture v. nature. It was a fast read, but the banter was annoying. The character development was limited, and, while they were supposed to be intelligent, the vocabulary they purported as advanced was actually quite common. The WFTD they texted each other were especially basic. It seems unlikely that Mexican American kids, fluent in Spanish, would use "No Bueno" as a catchphrase.

I listened to this because I remember loving Aristotle and Dante a couple years ago. This was just as good!

It‘s the story of Sal, a senior in high school, and his two best friends and his dad. It‘s a story of being an adopted kid trying to decide if you‘d want to know your birth parent. It‘s a story of adolescent anger. It‘s a story of knowing that a loved one is dying of cancer. And it‘s beautifully told.

YA #Recommendsday

Saenz writes quiet and beautiful stories. It‘s funny to say, “quiet,” because there are so many, violent, life changing moments, but that is how his writing feels. He always has at least one parent relationship that is the gold standard, which is also funny because it is often amidst such horrible adult role models. I didn‘t attach to this book quite as much as Aristotle, but appreciate the beauty in his writing non the less.

Just finished this audiobook. It was lovely and I thoroughly enjoy the voice. I struggled a little with how perfect the family is, but it really is a feel good book. The narration is also excellent.

In case you need a reminder...

I couldn‘t put this book down. I loved Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe, and this book grabbed me in the same way. It‘s hope in a hard time.

“‘Déjate querer.‘ Let yourself be loved.”

Focused on identity, prejudice, and grief, this book is an easy read that deals with complex topics and emotions. Benjamin Alire Sáenz always does such a wonderful job of creating characters that are so beautiful and sweet. This is a great book to read while waiting for the Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe sequel to finally be released!

#lgbtreads #gayya

This is one of those books that would not let me put it down. I know it is an added bonus that I grew up in El Paso, I can see and feel parts of this book in my mind.

The words are beautiful.
Déjate querer.
Let yourself be loved.

So many important things to learn from this.

Relationships. Friendship. Family. Grief. Interiority. Violence. Anger. Love. Our lives, however inexplicable and illogical and confusing and scary - are what we make them. How we react and what we do with our emotions matter much more than what is thrown at us and what struggles we face.

Also appreciate the diversity and representation. A moving masterpiece. I definitely cried at the ending events.

'That's the way it was when you loved someone. You took them everywhere you went - whether they were alive or not.'

'Grief is a terrible and beautiful thing. The hurt means you loved someone. That you really loved someone.'

'We're not pigs, you know. We're not supposed to live in our own shit.'

'Maybe everyone's heaven, and we just don't know it.'

'Seeing someone. Really seeing someone. That's love.'

'Maybe you think you need to be perfect. If you think of that word, don't listen to it.'

'Sometimes when you laugh, it has nothing to do with whistling in the dark.'

'But on that day she was wearing dignity. So much more beautiful than pearls.'

'Just because my love isn't perfect doesn't mean I don't love you.'

'Sometimes there were moments when time didn't exist. Or maybe it did exist, but, well, it just didn't matter.'

'Show me a man without regrets and I'll show you a man without a conscience.'

'I know you sometimes think that people are like books. But our lives don't have neat logical plots, and we don't always say beautiful, intelligent things like the characters in a novel. That's not the way life is. And we're not like letters - we can't put what we are and stuff it into an envelope and say this is me.'

I adore this WFTD idea. It's actually something I do - I have the Word Of The Day app and every day I learn a new word 🙈💕

'Everybody has their own way of loving.'

Love this recurring motif. His grandma loves through food. His uncle through money. Sam's mother through some messed up ways. But the love is there, even if sometimes you can't feel it.

'Why does it hurt when you love someone? What is it with the human heart? What was it with my heart?'

'There are only two things you need to learn in life. You need to learn how to forgive. And you need to learn how to be happy.'

'If it weren't for the river, the whole area would have been nothing but desert. But the river brought water to the fields and turned the landscape into a fertile valley. And I thought, my dad, he's like the river. He bought water to a lot of people – mostly to me, but also to Sam.'

'She had a beautiful face and a beautiful mind. But there was more to the question of being a person than a face, a body and a mind. There was that other thing called a psychology.'

'When is the right time for anything? Who knows? Living is an art, not a science.'

'It's not where I come from that matters - it's where I'm going.'

'People hate what they don't understand.'

'Maybe we don't always know what we have inside us.'

Also added a dollop of nutella but it looked messy afterwards so luckily I took this safety photo!

Day 16: #bluebooks
Most of these are on my #tbr pile from the library.

#31bookpics @howjessreads

Well-written, accessible for teens, exploration of self, dealing with loss, with subtext of gender identity, lbgtq.