With the Fire on High

by Elizabeth Acevedo

Sorry, I don't get the hype.
First, the positive things about this book. I loved seeing a mix of Spanish and English without having every word translated. There was a lot of Latina representation. I do not know how well it was done, but I enjoyed it. The main character faces real struggles that were not so easily fixed. It has amazing descriptions of food.

Now, let's talk about the reasons why I didn't like this book. Every character was so extremely flat in this book. Even the main character seemed to be a stereotype. And don't even get me started on this Leslie girl. She didn't have any personality except for being the pretty mean girl, which we only saw because the main character told us this. It didn't always reflect in her actions, especially since we saw no side character ever interacting with anyone else throughout this whole book.
Months passed but relationships didn't change even in the slightest. No development, no news, just exactly where they left off.
I am sick of the main character being 'oh so special'! I was looking forward to reading about a Latina character who loved to cook, but instead got a character that 'had a gift' and every time someone ate her food, they got memories of the past. Oh and just everyone loves Emoni's food. Literally everyone. People have different tastes. It would have been nice if just one person would have been like 'yeah it's good, but I prefer the original recipe' you know? Especially because this was such a huge deal in her cooking class.

Also, authors please stop using the phrase 'She released a breath she didn't know she was holding'. Normally I don't mind it, but now it popped up so frequently and in the weirdest times.

Also, the description of Sevilla didn't seem to be correct. But honestly, that was the least of my problems.