Acevedo writes poetically and passionately like always, and her audiobooks are always great. The book explores themes of grief, family, and cultural differences that would be great for her young adult audience to read.
Personally, I would have enjoyed a deeper exploration of grief and the way both girls grapple with the complexities of their family stories. There’s a lot to tap into there, but their voices were quite similar to the point where it became difficult sometimes to remember who was speaking. This made more sense when Acevedo reveals in her author’s note that she hadn’t made the decision to split into two POVs until later on, so the two protagonists didn’t feel distinctive enough.
The sister relationship also has a lot of potential to be explored more deeply, but we barely got to see them spend much time interacting with each other and coming to terms with one another. I wish more time had been devoted to the relationship between the two protagonists rather than spending 2/3 of the book reading a repetition of their same reactions.
Still a very solid YA book and would recommend to teens.
Personally, I would have enjoyed a deeper exploration of grief and the way both girls grapple with the complexities of their family stories. There’s a lot to tap into there, but their voices were quite similar to the point where it became difficult sometimes to remember who was speaking. This made more sense when Acevedo reveals in her author’s note that she hadn’t made the decision to split into two POVs until later on, so the two protagonists didn’t feel distinctive enough.
The sister relationship also has a lot of potential to be explored more deeply, but we barely got to see them spend much time interacting with each other and coming to terms with one another. I wish more time had been devoted to the relationship between the two protagonists rather than spending 2/3 of the book reading a repetition of their same reactions.
Still a very solid YA book and would recommend to teens.