I Am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter

by Erika L Sanchez

National Book Award Finalist!
Instant New York Times Bestseller!

The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian meets Jane the Virgin in this poignant but often laugh-out-loud funny contemporary YA about losing a sister and finding yourself amid the pressures, expectations, and stereotypes of growing up in a Mexican-American home. 
 
Perfect Mexican daughters do not go away to college. And they do not move out of their parents’ house after high school graduation. Perfect Mexican daughters never abandon their family.
 
But Julia is not your perfect Mexican daughter. That was Olga’s role.
 
Then a tragic accident on the busiest street in Chicago leaves Olga dead and Julia left behind to reassemble the shattered pieces of her family. And no one seems to acknowledge that Julia is broken, too. Instead, her mother seems to channel her grief into pointing out every possible way Julia has failed.
 
But it’s not long before Julia discovers that Olga might not have been as perfect as everyone thought. With the help of her best friend Lorena, and her first love, first everything boyfriend Connor, Julia is determined to find out. Was Olga really what she seemed? Or was there more to her sister’s story? And either way, how can Julia even attempt to live up to a seemingly impossible ideal?

“Alive and crackling—a gritty tale wrapped in a page-turner. ”—The New York Times
 
“Unique and fresh.” —Entertainment Weekly

“A standout.” —NPR

• ISBN10: 1524700495
• ISBN13: 9781524700492
• Publish Date: 17 October 2017
• Publish Status: Out of Print
• Out of Print: 25 January 2021
• Publish Country: US
• Imprint: Alfred A. Knopf Books for Young Readers
• Format: Hardcover (Library Binding)
• Pages: 352
• Language: English

Reviews

[Amber (The Literary Phoenix)]

I didn’t add this book to my TBR for the longest time.

I dunno, it just didn’t seem like I would like it? I finally put it on my TBR earlier this year, and I wasn’t in a rush to get to it, except that Dani from Perspective of a Writer reached out to do a buddy read, and this was one of the books she offered to choose from.

So, I figured – eh, why not?

As I turns out, I really appreciated I Am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter. There’s a lot going on in this book that it seems to casually touch on so many different social issues while never feeling forced or unauthentic. It is the first audiobook in ages that I have listened to without feeling like I needed to speed up the narration, because there was so much going on, I felt like I needed more time to decipher Julia.

And I liked Julia. Many of the reviews I’ve read point out that she’s an unlikeable protagonist. That she’s rude and angry and bitter. I can’t argue with that, especially in the first half of the book, but it was so refreshing to see a real character who didn’t act perfectly at all the perfect times. Julia has a lot going on in her life, in her family, and in her head. We see a multi-faceted person who worries and gets angry and makes foolish decisions while telling herself to stop and honestly which one of us hasn’t done that.

I think as a community, we love our happy endings in contemporaries – whether that ending means the girl gets the guy, or social justice is served. I Am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter will frustrate some people because that sense of “all is well in the world” is missing at the end. But that should not be confused with the feeling that the characters never evolved. There are so many golden quotes in this book that felt plucked from my own heart, and there is so much representation going on it’s overwhelming at times. Erika L. Sánchez does not shy away from the real stories. And she doesn’t sugar coat life.

Because life… is life. And sometimes, it’s okay to be imperfect. Trying to fill the shoes of a sibling, a cultural ideal, or even just a person opinion for ourselves is… impossible, most the time. We are who we are and I think that story is told beautifully through Julia’s journey.

So, socially, there’s a lot going on here. Honestly, I’m not sure I can think of any social issues pertaining to race, sexuality, metal health, or class that aren’t touched on in at least a general way. I expected to feel like Erika L. Sánchez was taking on too many things, but one thing flows into the next and it’s just… life.

I thought her writing was good, and her transitions were very good. There are scenes that may feel unimportant,but they all tie into Julia’s growth. I Am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter has an internal struggle plot, with an external struggle subplot, and that’s something we’re not accustomed to seeing. There’s a point where Julia mentions Like Water for Chocolate with some disgust, saying she had to read it for school. I read it too, and I can’t remember why it was assigned reading (literary acclaim, a specific message?) but if it’s still being read and if it’s just a diversity read… I Am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter would be a much better book to have in the curriculum.

Even though I went in thinking I would not like it, I thoroughly appreciated I Am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter. It’s one I definitely want to add to my personal library. It’s powerful in the right ways and it makes you think about so many different things. I’m so glad Dani gave me the little push to read this.

[bookperson]

I liked this book, it was realistic and heartbreaking, but I didn't fell in love with it. But I still would recommend it to everyone

[girlinthepages]

*Warning- this review will contain some mild spoilers.*

I will be 100% honest and say that this book was not what I was expecting. With the Jane the Virgin reference in the synopsis and the "laugh out loud" funny claim, I was expecting something heavy but with moments of levity and a strong thread of self aware humor throughout, much like the 2018 release American Panda, which also focuses on a protagonist who is a child of immigrants navigating two cultures. However, I found I Am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter to actually be quite heavy, and at times hard to read, though it definitely tells an important story.

The novel follows protagonist Julia, the child of Mexican immigrants in Chicago, as she navigates her final two years of high school. From the onset of the novel, it's apparent that Julia is deeply unhappy for various reasons, often blaming her Mexican heritage, though magnified by the recent death of her sister. I originally thought that the book was going to be a sort of contemporary-mystery focusing on Julia discovering the truth about her dead sister and the secrets she was keeping. While the first 25% or so of the novel focuses on Julia's obsession with her sister's secrets, it takes a sharp turn and starts to focus more inwardly on Julia and her own emotional and mental struggles, as she falls deeper and deeper into despair and suffocates under the expectations of her parents and balancing her desires for her future against her family's.

The atmosphere Sánchez creates in her novel is truly authentic, with the perfect mix of Mexican and English culture and language (I myself was on the receiving end of some "malcriadas" and "ave maria purisimas" in my youth, and I can state with confidence that the terminology used was exactly what a disapproving Latina mother/grandmother would use). The depressing, dingy Chicago neighborhood where Julia lives is juxtaposed with the bright and vibrant Mexican culture, and Julia actually spends a period of time in Mexico during the book, which may initially seem like a punishment but is actually very restorative for her and helps give the reader more insight into the two worlds Julie is straddling- one where she is the rebellious, intelligent, frustrating yet loved Americanized daughter, and one where she is the diverse, poor outcast fighting for her place in an often white-washed world- too Mexican among Americans and too American among her Mexican family (as evidenced when Julie comments that she's considered too skinny in Mexico and too fat in America).

Though the novel portrays a lot of the hardships of the immigrant and child of immigrant experience in the US and tackles many important and tough topics, I had several issues with it that made the reading experience somewhat difficult at times. The narrative would often have very abrupt time jumps that skipped months/seasons ahead, that left me feeling like I had literary whiplash and some MAJOR events were glossed over, including a suicide attempt. Now, I'm not one to say everything needs a trigger warning, but it was just so sudden and abrupt and I feel like it warranted more attention than it received. However the aftermath was discussed a lot including a lot of positive focus on the recovery process. There's also the fact that this book is less than 400 pages and covers about two years of time, which is quite a bit for a contemporary novel. The story also delves pretty deep into depression, and Julia's first person narrative can often be difficult to read as she's frustrating, confrontational, dissatisfied with everything, and so, so angry all of the time. While her experience is important to the story, I did find it could be exhausting to be inside her head and I did occasionally have to take some breaks because of that (although I did read this book in 48 hours so I was still pretty invested despite all that).

Overall: I Am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter is an important and stunning narrative in many ways, shining an honest and candid light on the immigrant and first generation experience and not shying away from difficult to discuss topics, especially identity, mental health, and culture. However, there were jarring time jumps in the narrative and Julia's narrative voice while important, was hard for me to read at times. I'd highly recommend this book to anyone who wants to read more diversely, especially regarding the Latinx community, even if it may be a harder read to get through. This review was originally posted on Girl in the Pages

[Bianca]

But how do we live with these secrets locked within us? How do we tie our shoes, brush our hair, drink coffee, wash the dishes, and go to sleep, pretending everything is fine? How do we laugh and feel happiness despite the buried things growing inside? How can we do that day after day?

— About the struggles of a poor immigrant family, and the consequences of secrets kept and expectations placed on the children. The main character is very unlikable, but very very relatable.