I Am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter
by Erika Sanchez
Realistic Fiction
Review #1
* * * * Stars (Great!)
“I Am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter” follows the protagonist, Julia, who is a high school student in the esteemed city of Chicago. Her older sister, Olga, dies due to a bus accident – as she was crossing the street she was hit by a bus. Olga was known as the most perfect daughter, but after investigating the death of her older sister, Julia concludes that she was not as perfect as she seemed. Julia’s mother and father channel their inner grieving selves and it is up to Julia to investigate what happened to Olga. No one seems to acknowledge that Julia is also broken, with her heart and mental health into a million shattered pieces. In this book, Julia explores finding love, the origins of her Mexican familly, and her true self. Will Julia be able to find out what happened to Olga? Will she be able to find her true self?
I truly enjoyed this book as it was focused on diversity. It is amazing to read a book with a character who is of a different ethnicity. Erika Sanchez did an amazing job narrating Julia’s inner thoughts, and she provides an abundance of suspense and foreshadowing in the book. I was quite surprised at the end of the book, as the way she wrote the book made me want to finish it in one day. A few downsides of the book were the stereotypes of Mexicans and that it covers harsher topics, like rape. For high school teens and adults.
