In diary entries, Gabi, an unforgettable narrator, describes her entire senior year at her Catholic high school in Southern California.
She loves carne asada, her best friends Cindy and Sebastian, poetry and guys. Though at the beginning she's not yet been kissed, she makes up for it over the course of the book--as both initiator and recipient. Gabi's intelligence informs her sense of humor, and also her ability to see things with clear eyes, such as her father's drug addiction and the double standard behind people judging Cindy for getting pregnant while celebrating Gabi's mother's pregnancy. She loves Gwendolyn Brooks's "We Real Cool," Sandra Cisneros and Ginsberg's "Howl." She writes, "That's the magic of poetry--some gay Jewish poet wrote about people wasting away around him because of drugs, and I, a straight Mexican-American girl, know how he felt...."
Debut author Isabel Quinetero delves into the thoughts of a talented teen struggling with a complex home life, body image and mixed messages. A writer to watch. --Jennifer M. Brown, children's editor, Shelf Awareness