I Am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter

This book was a little difficult to read, because Erika L. Sanchez perfectly captured the near-universal feeling of “I am a teenager, I am unhappy and my parents don't understand me.” Though Julia's reasons and lifestyle may be different from mine, I ached for her, as I remember being unhappy and feeling like nothing was ever going to get better at that age.

My only real complaint about this book was really just based on expectations: I thought I was getting a novel about navigating grief while uncovering a mystery about an idealized dead loved one, which was a part of it, but a good majority of it was more a character study of Julia and her relationships with her family and peers. There is nothing wrong with that at all, I just had to readjust my expectations after I realized the mystery wouldn't be a larger part of the novel. 4/5