The Go-Between

by Veronica Chambers

[Leah]

The Go-Between is one of those books you enjoy, on the surface, but you know that if you scratch a bit too hard you’ll come up with a few issues. I was intrigued to read a Mexican girl’s perspective on moving to LA, the struggles she would face, the differences between the two places, however while I enjoyed the book on the surface, once Camilla actually got to LA, I lost a lot of respect for her. I generally love books about kids of celebrities, or kids who are celebrities, because that also offers an insight into a world I know little about and while I initially loved Camilla, boy does she make some poor decisions.

The first half of the book, set in Mexico City, was fascinating. And I’m not sure if it’s a good fascinating or an “OMG, why are these people allowed to be famous” fascinating, because despite the fact that Camilla goes on and on and on about not being part of the Mexico City elite, she proves time and time again that just because she might not be flaunting her parents wealth on Instagram, she also doesn’t do anything when her supposed friend goes behind her back - twice - to land both her, and then her mother, in trouble with the press. Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me. And Camilla let Patrizia fool her twice, for reasons I still don’t understand because she was just as vapid as all those other so-called friends Camilla had and got rid of.

Then, when we got to LA, Camilla decides that because these two girls assume she’s a poor Mexican girl from East LA and is apparently on scholarship, she rolls with it. As if that’s just what you do. She tries to rationalise it, but you kind of want to tell her to grow up. And she carries it on for so much longer than necessary (in fact, one minute lying to these people she considers friends is too long). Even the fact that Cammi’s friends think those racist things about her - and that then gets put aside “we’ll take racist off the table” LOL WHAT?! NO. If someone assumes that because of your skin colour and accent you are poor/deserving of sympathy/free gifts and you are not, YOU TELL THEM. You put them in their place and don’t even want to be friends with them. You don’t lie and string them along. It was like bad after bad after bad. It was frustrating for Cammi to just accept it, but then on the other hand, it made me cringe that Cammi was so superficial herself. She didn’t want to take the bus so she Uber’ed everywhere as if that’s no big deal? Because “the bus in LA isn’t safe”, are buses regularly hi-jacked in LA and you’re taken somewhere other than where the bus says it goes? Am I missing something? Do what you like with your money, but please don’t act like the bus is beneath you.

If I didn’t have to review this book, I may not have pulled up so many issues. If you don’t think too hard you may enjoy this book, but there is a lot wrong with it. It could have been amazing, if Cammi had stood up to those racist comments (I am also very aware that someone can be racist in a book and as long as they’re called out and change, that’s like a learning experience? But they bring up Willow and Tiggy’s racism then casually brush it away, like maybe it’s not racism??? And Willow can’t possibly be racist because she’s mixed race??? And it’s just like?????? Eh?? It doesn’t work like that? That’s akin to saying only white people can be racist and I’m pretty sure any race can be racist against another race).

This book wasn't for me. It could have been amazing, Veronica's writing style flows so easily, and for the most part I liked Camilla, I really did, but she just needed to get her priorities straight. Fitting in is hard, I know that, I've moved places but starting it off with lies is never the answer.