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Critics' Opinion:
Readers' Opinion:
First Published:
Mar 2017, 464 pages
Paperback:
Nov 2017, 464 pages
Book Reviewed by:
Michelle Anya Anjirbag
Buy This Book
"Friendships, family, grief, joy, rage, faith, doubt, poetry, and love—this complex and sensitive book has room for every aspect of growing up!" - Margarita Engle, Newbery Honor–Winning author of The Surrender Tree
Sal used to know his place with his adoptive gay father, their loving Mexican American family, and his best friend, Samantha. But it's senior year, and suddenly Sal is throwing punches, questioning everything, and realizing he no longer knows himself. If Sal's not who he thought he was, who is he?
This humor-infused, warmly humane look at universal questions of belonging is a triumph.
Prologue
I have a memory that is almost like a dream: the yellow leaves from Mima's mulberry tree are floating down from the sky like giant snowflakes. The November sun is shining, the breeze is cool, and the afternoon shadows are dancing with a life that is far beyond my boyhood understanding. Mima is singing something in Spanish. There are more songs living inside her than there are leaves on her tree.
She is raking the fallen leaves and gathering them. When she is done with her work, she bends down and buttons my coat. She looks at her pyramid of leaves and looks into my eyes and says, "Jump!" I run and jump onto the leaves, which smell of the damp earth.
All afternoon, I bathe in the waters of those leaves.
When I get tired, Mima takes my hand. As we walk back into the house, I stop, pick up a few leaves, and hand them to her with my five-year-old hands. She takes the fragile leaves and kisses them.
She is happy.
And me? I have never been this happy.
I keep that memory ...
Saenz’s presentation is powerful not because of the questions it asks, but because of what the reader is forced to feel...continued
Full Review
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(Reviewed by Michelle Anya Anjirbag).
Bill Konigsberg, Stonewall Award-winning author of Openly Straight and The Porcupine of Truth
What the world needs now is a book like this one. Profoundly important and moving. Read it. Francisco Jiménez, Pura Belpré Honor-winning author of Breaking Through and Reaching Out
Thought-provoking and uplifting, this compelling coming-of-age novel treats the complexities of being human with compassion, and—above all—love.Grief is hard to deal with at any age, but Benjamin Alire Saenz's novel The Inexpliable Logic of My Life reminds us just how much harder it can be when on the cusp of adulthood, especially when it is caused by the loss of a parent. Sal, Sam, and Fito each experience the loss of a parent or loved one in a different way, and the relationship they each lose is different, which, for adult readers of the book, is a reminder that when adults talk to teenagers, especially when it comes to heavy, life-altering topics, there is not a one-size fits all solution, nor can the reality of a situation be sugarcoated. Teenagers know what's real: Sal watched the decline of his grandmother from within a large, loving family; Sam's contentious ...
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