Tag Archives: Puerto Rican

Feb 14 2022

Book Talk: Octopus Stew by Eric Velasquez

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Welcome to another Book Talk, which can be found on our new YouTube channel!

ABOUT THE BOOK: The octopus Grandma is cooking has grown to titanic proportions. “¡Tenga cuidado!” Ramsey shouts. “Be careful!” But it’s too late. The octopus traps Grandma!

Ramsey uses both art and intellect to free his beloved abuela.

Then the story takes a surprising twist. And it can be read two ways. Open the fold-out pages to find Ramsey telling a story to his family. Keep the pages folded, and Ramsey’s octopus adventure is real.

This beautifully illustrated picture book, drawn from the author’s childhood memories, celebrates creativity, heroism, family, grandmothers, grandsons, Puerto Rican food, Latinx culture, and more.

With an author’s note and the Velasquez family recipe for Octopus Stew!

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Click on the link to watch the book talk and then add your comments below to join the conversation. ENJOY!

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Sonia Alejandra Rodriguez, PhD is an Associate Professor of English at LaGuardia Community College (CUNY) where she teaches composition, literature, and creative writing. Her academic research focuses on decolonial healing in Latinx children’s and young adult literature. Sonia is a Mellon Emerging Faculty Leader.

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Dora Guzmán is a bilingual reading specialist for grades K-5 and also teaches college courses in Children’s Literature and Teaching Beginning Literacy. She is currently a doctoral student with a major in Reading, Language, and Literacy. When she is not sharing her love of reading with her students, you can find her in the nearest library, bookstore, or online, finding more great reads to add to her never-ending “to read” pile!

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Mar 22 2018

Guest Post by Author NoNieqa Ramos: I Don’t Eat Mangoes or Oye Mi Canto!–Gloria Estefan

 

By NoNieqa Ramos

“What are you?” I can’t express how many times I’ve been asked this exact question by white girls. No joke. What preempted this comment, you ask? Perhaps I was wearing some sort of costume? Perhaps it was dark? Try again. It was because I was speaking in grammatically correct sentences and making allusions to books. Me. The same person who wore baggy pants, hoodies, bright red lipstick, had giant Dep-gelled hair, and dropped the F bomb.

I mean “word to your moms, I came to drop bombs. I got more lyrics than the bible got psalms.”- House of Pain

Just sayin. But really who was I? Who am I as a person of color?

To Puerto Ricans on the island, I’m gringa city. And they are right. How can I understand what it is like for the President of the United States to throw me paper-freakin-towels when I’m dealing with the spill of a hurricane?

That being said, my great-grandmother came from the mountains of Puerto Rico and brought my great-aunts to the Bronx. To every POC I ever knew, I was 100 percent Boricua from my knock-off Timberlands to my hoopie earrings. To the principal at my high school who called me Ms. Ramirez, and responded to my correction with “same thing,” I was everyone and nobody.  To the white girls at my high school, I was definitely not a virgin. For every book that I read as a kid, I didn’t exist.

Image result for like water for chocolate bookEven with the books I finally did find in GRAD SCHOOL, like “Like Water for Chocolate” or ANYTHING by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, I still didn’t see myself. I grew up on rice and Goya oh Boya!–beans from a can–seasoned with jarred Sofrito, Recaito, sprinkled with Sazon.

My single-dad didn’t have time to do all these romantic things to food that books like Isabel Allende described– like soaking the beans overnight–not getting them from a can–slicing up fresh avocado–in my childhood only white people getting their buzz on with Margaritas ate guacamole. You know how expensive avocadoes are?

Yet, there was never a time when the radio wasn’t blaring with meringue, salsa, free-style music by TKA (Maria! The most beautiful sound I ever heard…), Jodeci, Gloria Estefan and the like. There was never a time when my dad wasn’t telling me if I didn’t get 99s, I was gonna end up cleaning floors for a living–like every brown person represented in all of the movies I had ever seen.

When I looked in the mirror, everybody else’s image of what a Puerto Rican is supposed to be crowded in with my image of self. When I was sixteen, we moved out of the Bronx and into a white suburb of NJ. One day our white neighbors called my stepmother Rosie in alarm. She should call the police. “A black man” was on our property.

My stepmother had white skin and blonde hair, but she spent half her life in PR. In fact, she was the reason I grew up hearing Spanish. She was 100 percent Puerto Rican and 100 percent sure the “black man” on our lawn was my dad trimming the hedges. My dad.

100 percent used to this type of shit. 100 percent used to being called gringo by other Puerto Ricans for not speaking the Spanish he was forced to unlearn as a child. 100 percent representing the black and brown in our gene pool with his gorgeous face and fabulous mustache.

Who am I as a POC? On those surveys, I answer, race human. Ethnicity, Taino. Yes, Taino. Not white. I don’t identify with the oppressors who slaughtered my people. I’m not the image that people want to project into my mirror, but that person in the mirror combing her bushy hair, dancing to old-school Eddie Palmieri. Getting ready to sit myself and my daughter down to learn Spanish from our tutors who come every Sunday to help us reclaim the language that should have been our own in the first damn place. So, quien soy yo?

Soy un maestra. Soy un autor. Soy un madre y un esposo. So un activista. Soy una Boricua. Lo entiendes, holmes?

The Disturbed Girl's Dictionary Cover

CLICK HERE  for our review of The Disturbed Girl’s Dictionary.

CLICK HERE  for another guest post from NoNieqa.

 

 

NoNieqa Ramos spent her childhood in the Bronx, where she started her own publishing company and sold books for twenty-five cents until the nuns shut her down. With the support of her single father and her tias, she earned dual master’s degrees in creative writing and education at the University of Notre Dame. As a teacher, she has dedicated herself to bringing gifted-and-talented education to minority students and expanding access to literature, music, and theater for all children. A frequent foster parent, NoNieqa lives in Ashburn, Virginia, with her family. She can be found on Twitter at @NoNiLRamos.

 

 

Feb 22 2018

Guest Post by Author NoNieqa Ramos: Voice Lessons

 

By NoNieqa Ramos

I’ll never forget the sweltering summer in NY, when my soul mate and I dined with a friend and editor from a NYC publishing house, partially because we spent 300 dollars on appetizers. I mean for 20 bucks we could have had arroz con habichuelas y maduros and a friggin bistec, you know?

But we had all gotten into the friend zone–where you want to be when your friend happens to be a Big Wig–and I was loving being back in Manhattan, where I used to bus to the Port Authority and cab it to the Village to get various body parts pierced.

The Disturbed Girl’s Dictionary was a Work-in-Progress. I met said editor at an SCBWI pitch conference and she had told me, “I was the reason she came to these conferences.” That even though the plot of my manuscript was “crazy town”– I was writing about a Korean boy named Yin Coward who shot his nemesis and true love and ended up hiding in the walls of his Catholic school–my “voice” was “OMG.”

Yin Coward later got rejected by a hotshot agent who said “Alas, it had too much voice,” and was eventually put to bed in a C drive. Ultimately, years later, when my agent Emily Keyes sent the completed The Disturbed Girl’s Dictionary to my friend and editor at the aforementioned publishing house, she declined, saying “It was too beautiful.” Now I sit with reviews from Kirkus calling my voice “hard to process” but “inimitable” and “unique.” I’m speaking at the ALAN Conference at NCTE to discuss The Disturbed Girl’s Dictionary on the Panel: “Giving Voices to Difficult Experiences.” BookList says my writing is “exceptional” and “I’m a voice to watch.”

It fascinates me that Kirkus called the syntax of DDG a “stylistic choice.” What’s of great fascination to me, is as a Nuyorican from the Bronx, it wasn’t until my thirties that I found my own voice, my own place at the table, so to speak. I’ve spent my life, like my protagonist Macy Cashmere, being defined by other people.

In the Bronx, I was 100 Puerto Rican. Let me ‘splain. With my people, it was a source of pride and defiance. In my family, my elders had started in the barrio and worked their way from poverty to being lab techs, social workers, principals, and vice-presidents in the ‘burbs.

In my reality, I learned, there were hidden definitions. So there was this Italian boy I had a crush on. He used to give me extra cannolis with my orders. I’m thirteen. One day I’m walking home and he’s standing on the corner.

He’s saying things like come over here and talk to me. I smiled, but kept walking, not knowing, really, what to do with my skinny-ass self. Then the cursing started. I was a Puerto Rican slut. (Whaaat?) etc. etc. This was one of many delightful experiences with race. I learned boobs weren’t the only thing to enter a room first. My brownness did, too.

Back to that editor and friend. There was wine and three-hundred-dollar lobster rolls. Did I want an actual entree? Well, having a need for food, shelter, and insurance–I had a Catholic teacher’s budget at the time–made that a hard NO.

Anyway, there was witty repartee to fill me up. Have I mentioned, I’m that English teacher that delights in witty repartee, the use of active voice, and sentence diagramming? Then I did it. I code switched. Can’t remember exactly what ungrammatical thing I said. But I do remember being corrected by this friend, this editor, this white lady in public like I was a child.

About the English teacher thing. Command of the English language has empowered me (and my family) throughout life to get awards, attention, scholarships, employment, respect, and lots of comments like “What are you?” (Puerto Rican and literate, that’s what I am bee–)

Losing the Spanish language has done the same, and is one of the biggest tragedies in my cultural life. My protagonist Macy Cashmere’s ungrammatical language is not a “stylistic choice.” It is an outright rebellion. Nod if you feel me. As Macy would say, “Just because you monolingual motherfoes can’t speak my language ain’t my problem. I mean, you could read Faulkner, but you can’t get me because I say ‘a’ instead of ‘an’?”

The thing is, we need diverse voices that speak grammatically correct. We need diverse voices that crush stereotypes like cockroaches under chancletas. We writers love to write from the perspective of the diamonds-in-the-rough who also happen to be literary geniuses. Well, guess what?

Macy’s there, too. If you’re not going to make room at the table for her, she’s bound to do something about it. Maybe sit right on your lap. Maybe toss the table. You find her story hard to read? Intense? Remember the Macys of the world are living that story. She’s been silenced all her life. She doesn’t look right. She doesn’t act right. But she’s stronger than you. If the whole damn world ended, she’d still be standing because her world has ended a thousand times. But what, you want to filter her? Don’t get me wrong, I gave Macy Miss Black. I want Macy to make it. I  want to get her counselors and tutors and have her rescued by librarians.

But Macy doesn’t exist for me or for you. The Disturbed Girl’s Dictionary is BY Macy and FOR Macy. As Kirkus said, Macy is “aggressive, angry, and intimidating.” And, hello, that’s because she doesn’t get the luxury of magic powers or magic foster parents. One of my foster kids left me to be adopted by her aunt. Years later, I found her back on a foster kids website–now having been abused by her mom and rejected by the only sane relative she had—hoping desperately for someone to be her “forever family” at the age of thirteen. The age kids almost NEVER get adopted. This book is for that kid. Take a listen.

CLICK HERE for our review of The Disturbed Girl’s Dictionary.

 

NoNieqa Ramos spent her childhood in the Bronx, where she started her own publishing company and sold books for twenty-five cents until the nuns shut her down. With the support of her single father and her tias, she earned dual master’s degrees in creative writing and education at the University of Notre Dame. As a teacher, she has dedicated herself to bringing gifted-and-talented education to minority students and expanding access to literature, music, and theater for all children. A frequent foster parent, NoNieqa lives in Ashburn, Virginia, with her family. She can be found on Twitter at @NoNiLRamos.

 

Jan 10 2018

Book Review & Giveaway: ¡A Bailar! Let’s Dance! by Judith Oritz Cofer

 

Judith Ortiz Cofer was the first author to win the Pura Belpré Award for her first young adult book An Island Like You: Stories of the Barrio. On December 30, 2016, she passed away at the young age of 64, due to cancer. This week, we celebrate her life and work with reviews of four of her books and a giveaway. Please scroll to the end of this post to enter!

Review by Toni Margarita Plummer

DESCRIPTION OF THE BOOK: “A bailar! There’s music in the park today—let’s dance!” Marita and her mother are finishing their Saturday chores and anticipating Papi’s salsa concert in the park that night, so Mami makes the broom her dance partner to show her daughter how to dance to the music. “Listen to the claves, the bongos, and the cowbells. Listen to the maracas, the timbales, and the giro, they will tell you how to move your shoulders, your hips, your feet.” They dance faster and faster, so fast that they fall down on the floor laughing.

That afternoon, they put on their best dresses and dancing shoes, and old Don Jose says they look like “dos lindas flores.” He follows them slowly, “his cane tapping out a salsa beat on the sidewalk.” The music floats in and out of the barrio’s alleys, calling listeners to move, move, move. Soon Marita and her mother are leading a parade of neighbors and friends dancing and singing their way to the concert. And at the park, Papi plays notes on his trombone that are a secret between him and Marita: te veo, te ve-o, te ve-o. I see you, I see you, I see you!

Judith Ortiz Cofer’s lyrical text combining English and Spanish is complemented by Christina Ann Rodriguez’s vibrant images of the neighborhood’s unique characters—viejitos, fruit sellers, boys on skateboards and even babies—reveling in the beat of the music. Families will delight in reading together this warm, energetic look at one community’s enjoyment of the sights and sounds of salsa music.

MY TWO CENTS: The story begins with Mami and Marita singing and dancing while they clean in the kitchen. They have made up a song to Papi’s music, and Marita makes claves out of spoons to tap out the beat. The lines of the song, given in Spanish and English, permeate the book, weaving in and out of the other text. “Move move move to the rhythm that makes us…that makes us feel happy.” This creates a lovely rhythm, one which the reader feels propels the mother and daughter on their walk to the park, where Papi’s salsa band will play.  On their walk/dance Marita and Mami recruit more people, calling out to all they meet, singing their song. One stop is the hairdresser’s, where they enlist a woman who comes out still wearing her curlers and salon cape. In this way they gather a substantial following, and though not everyone can join them, they bring joy to all they meet.

Christina Ann Rodriguez’s illustrations are beautiful. My favorite was the one of Marita and Mami on the kitchen floor, holding hands and looking into each other’s eyes. It’s such a happy, spontaneous moment. We can feel their laughter. Another touching one is of Marita when they arrive at the park, a little girl surrounded by taller adults, trying to find her father on stage. The illustrations are dotted with musical notes, which hits home the idea that music is an integral part of this world. Children will enjoy finding the little dog (a Pomeranian, I think) in each spread as he follows Marita and Mami to the park, crossing the street, looking up at a skateboarder, sitting high atop a stack of watermelons.

Judith Ortiz Cofer takes young readers on a delightful journey which highlights the joy of music and the warmth of neighbors and a community. This is a book for older children, ages five to eight, as there is quite a lot of text. But even younger children will enjoy the colorful pictures and the rhythm of the words.

WHERE TO GET IT: To find ¡A Bailar!/Let’s Dance! check your local public library, your local bookstore, or IndieBound. Also, check out Goodreads, Amazon, and Barnes and Noble.

judith ortiz coferABOUT THE AUTHOR: Judith Ortiz Cofer is an award-winning author known for her stories about coming-of-age experiences in the barrio and her writings about the cultural conflicts of immigrants. She is the author of many distinguished titles for young adults such as An Island Like You, Silent Dancing: A Partial Remembrance of a Puerto Rican Childhood, and The Line in the Sun. She was the Regents’ and Franklin Professor of English and Creative Writing at the University of Georgia. In 2010, she was inducted into the Georgia Writers Hall of Fame.

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Image result for Christina Ann Rodriguez illustratorABOUT THE ILLUSTRATOR: Christina Ann Rodriguez obtained her BFA in illustration from the University of Hartford. Her work has been included in various publications, including Spider Magazine. She lives in New Jersey.

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toni margarita plummerABOUT THE REVIEWER: Toni Margarita Plummer is a Macondo Fellow, a winner of the Miguel Mármol Prize, and the author of the story collection The Bolero of Andi Rowe. She hails from South El Monte, a working-class suburb of Los Angeles, and worked as an acquiring editor at a major publisher for more than ten years. Toni now freelance edits and lives in the Hudson Valley with her family. Visit her website at ToniMargaritaPlummer.Wordpress.com.

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We will be giving away a copy of each of the Judith Ortiz Cofer books reviewed here this week to one lucky winner! The titles are: Call Me María, If I Could Fly, and The Meaning of Consuelo and the picture book A Bailar/Let’s Dance.

ENTER HERE TO WIN FOUR JUDITH ORTIZ COFER BOOKS!

Dec 11 2017

Guest Post by Author Diana Rodriguez Wallach: How I Broke Out of My Latina YA Box

 

By Diana Rodriguez Wallach

The main character of my new young adult spy thriller series, Anastasia Phoenix, is not Latina. Given how few books feature Latinx characters, you might not find this very surprising. But when your maiden name is Rodriguez and you’ve previously written a YA Latina trilogy, this fact is a little shocking to the publishing world.

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The first book in the series, Proof of Lies, went through a lot of rejections before it made it into print. At first, I stumbled into the wrong market—I was pitching a spy thriller when YA imprints were buying vampires, then werewolves, then dystopian. Eventually the publishing pendulum swung back toward contemporary, but I encountered a different issue. “I’m surprised the main character isn’t Latina,” was a common comment from editors who passed on the manuscript.

At one point, a prior agent who represented the novel suggested I consider the switch. Just make Anastasia Puerto Rican, Dominican, Mexican, anything. But that wasn’t the story I wanted to tell. While this book went through many, many significant edits during the years it took to find the right publishing house, Anastasia’s ethnicity remained the same. Frankly put, I couldn’t see her parents as Puerto Rican spies. Proof of Lies is set in Italy; the second book, Lies that Bind (March 2018), is set in England, France, and Brazil. The entire concept was to set each book in a different country, primarily European. I was aiming for a James Bond or Jason Bourne feel, only with a female in the lead.

I didn’t realize I was breaking a cardinal rule of marketing.

In 2008, I published my first YA trilogy, Amor and Summer Secrets. It’s a YA Latina romance, and it was the third novel my agent tried to sell on my behalf. My first two manuscripts, which are still unpublished, featured white teenagers in coming-of-age tales. After those failed attempts, my agent suggested I write a multicultural story, so I did. Mariana Ruiz is a non-Spanish-speaking half-Puerto Rican teen growing up in the Philly suburbs who feels disconnected to her Latina heritage, until she’s forced to spend the summer on the island. The book sold in two days.

Unbeknownst to me, that book put me in a box. Like any other author, my publisher’s sales and marketing team had to determine where to place my book and exactly which reader I should reach. For me, I wasn’t simply put in the YA Box, but the YA Latina Box. So when I followed up that series, which placed in the International Latino Book Awards, with a novel featuring a white girl with a double-black belt in karate and no mention of ethnic identity other than “American teenager,” I unwittingly broke their marketing rules.

I’m not the first author to face this; it’s why many writers choose pen names when switching genres (whether it be a YA author writing adult romance, or a thriller writer penning a literary tome). Like them, my prior agent asked if I’d consider a pseudonym, but I refused. It wasn’t for any political statement, but for the most honest reason of all—I worked really hard on this book for years, and I was going to see my name on it when it published. Even if that name was Rodriguez. Even if that name gave readers the wrong impression of what was inside.

Because ultimately, my last name doesn’t comprise the entirety of who I am. Yes, my father was born and raised in Puerto Rico, but my mother is Polish and she grew up in a Polish-speaking household, and went to a Polish-speaking church and Catholic school. I attended Christmas mass in Polish every year growing up, and my mom cooked pierogi and kielbasa right alongside Spanish rice and plantains on Christmas Eve. I’m positive a lot of teens have similar experiences, whether they be Latinx and Irish, Indian and African American, or Filipino and Jewish.

So Anastasia Phoenix is not my big fat Latina book. While there is some Spanish dialog in it—because her love interest, Marcus, is from Madrid—I stuck to my vision and kept the mystery at the center of the plot rather than her ethnicity. That’s not to say I won’t write another Latina novel. In fact, I’m working on a contemporary YA right now that will feature a multicultural character. But I hope to follow it up with another YA thriller about a female ghost hunter whose ethnic background may never be mentioned. If I’m lucky, I will publish them all under my real name, and I hope my readers will follow along. Whatever ethnicity they may be.

AuthorHeadshot_2015ABOUT THE AUTHOR (from her website): Diana Rodriguez Wallach is the author of the Anastasia Phoenix Series, three young adult spy thrillers (Entangled Publishing). The first book in the trilogy, Proof of Lies, was named by Paste Magazine as one of the “Top 10 Best Young Adult Books for March 2017.” Bustle also listed her as one of the “Top Nine Latinx Authors to Read for Women’s History Month 2017.” Additionally, she is the author of three award-winning young adult novels: Amor and Summer Secrets, Amigas and School Scandals, and Adios to All The Drama (Kensington Books); as well as a YA short-story collection based on the Narcissus myth, entitled Mirror, Mirror (Buzz Books, 2013).

In 2011, she published a highly regarded essay in Dear Bully: 70 Authors Tell Their Stories (HarperCollins). It was the only essay chosen from the anthology by Scholastic to be used in its classroom materials. Diana is featured in the anthology, Latina Authors and Their Muses (Twilight Times Books, 2015), and she is currently on staff as a featured blogger for Quirk Books.

In 2010, Diana was named one of the Top Ten New Latino Authors to Watch by LatinoStories.com, and she placed second in the International Latino Book Awards. She is an advisory board member for the Philly Spells Writing Center, and is a Creative Writing instructor for Johns Hopkins University’s Center for Talented Youth. She holds a B.S. in Journalism from Boston University, and currently lives in Philadelphia. For more about Diana, check out The Whole Story.

Nov 16 2017

Book Review: They Both Die at the End by Adam Silvera

 

Reviewed by Lila Quintero Weaver

This review is based on an advance reader’s edition.

FROM THE BOOK JACKET: In the tradition of Before I Fall and If I Stay, this tour de force from acclaimed author Adam Silvera, whose debut the New York Times called “profound,” reminds us that there’s no life without death, no love without loss—and that it’s possible to change your whole world in a day.

Mateo Torrez and Rufus Emeterio are going to die today. The two boys are total strangers, but, for different reasons, they’re both looking to make a new friend on their End Day. There is some good news: There’s an app for that. It’s called Last Friend, and through it, Rufus and Mateo are about to meet up for one last great adventure—to live a lifetime in a single day.

MY TWO CENTS: The release date for They Both Die at the End was September 5, 2017. It’s no coincidence that the novel also takes place on that date, with chapters time-stamped to reflect the passing hours. This is no ordinary day for Mateo Torrez, 18, and Rufus Emeterio, 17, both of New York City. An unfailingly accurate notification service known as Death-Cast delivers the news that it is their last day on earth. Sadly, both boys have lost loved ones whose deaths were predicted in the same, bone-chilling fashion.

They Both Die at the End sends readers on a spellbinding adventure, following the two main characters as they squeeze in one more day of living. The story hits the ground running at 12:22 a.m., when Mateo’s phone sounds the eerie Death-Cast alert. Rufus receives his alert not long after that. Yet for all the tension of the ticking countdown, this novel narrates a surprisingly tender friendship that springs up between the two strangers. They connect through the app Last Friend, one of numerous social, cultural, and commercial spin-off products resulting from the launch of Death-Cast, which has been in existence for six years.

By the time Rufus and Mateo’s last day arrives, society has accepted the reliability of the Death-Cast predictions, and has developed norms in response to the ubiquitous presence of so-called Deckers, people who’ve received the last-day warning. This is made evident in a scene where subway passengers realize that a Decker and her Last Friend are among them. A stranger offers sympathy. “Sorry to lose you,” she says to the Decker, and commends them both for spending the final hours together. The Death-Cast phenomenon has changed the landscape of everyday life in other ways. Restaurants offer discounts to Deckers, and at a special amusement park called Make a Memory, Deckers and their companions indulge in simulated extreme sports. Social media has summoned a flurry of responses, too, including CountDowners, a blog devoted to the postings and live-feeds of Deckers, who share real-time accounts of their final hours on earth. Silvera weaves these fictitious cultural creations seamlessly into an otherwise recognizable version of contemporary city life.

How Death-Cast knows when a person will expire is anyone’s guess, but because his mom died in childbirth, Mateo has been death-haunted all his life. Paranoia about dying has kept him from making friends and participating in childhood activities, such as going on sleepovers and roller-skating in the park. Now, with the bitter reality of death squarely before him, Mateo is engulfed in the pain of wasted opportunities. When the End Day news comes, he is home alone. His father, who is hospitalized in intensive care, has been in a coma for weeks, and Mateo’s only other significant connections are with a close friend, Lidia, and her one-year-old daughter.

While Mateo is a loner, who from the safe confines of his apartment has engaged primarily with the digital universe of blogs, games, and apps— Rufus is more of a here-and-now guy: confident, socially connected, and comfortable jumping into new experiences in a way that Mateo never has been. When readers meet Rufus, he’s giving his ex-girlfriend’s new guy a beat-down. Then the Death-Cast ringtone goes off and everybody freezes. Although foster brothers Malcolm and Tagoe are on hand to provide Rufus with backup during the fight, for reasons that aren’t immediately revealed, they can’t help him once the police get involved. So Rufus takes flight alone, into the darkened streets of the city. He needs a friend.

The novel follows Mateo and Rufus from their separate, but equally jarring Death-Cast notices until they connect through the Last Friend app. During the course of their hours together, they bridge the initial awkwardness, and in cementing a friendship, defy the opposing pull of their personalities and lifestyles. Rufus gently goads Mateo to push aside long-held fears, and Mateo responds by embracing new experiences, from small to significant. By the time they land at Clint’s Graveyard—a dance and karaoke club that exists to give Deckers an unforgettable send-off—Mateo is more alive, more himself than ever, and the boys’ friendship turns romantic.

In his debut, More Happy Than Not, Adam Silvera demonstrated a fluid command of speculative fiction. In They Both Die at the End, he repeats that impressive feat, crafting a futuristic world that lands credibly in all its disquieting aspects, yet never forgets that telling a specific story is the most important order of business. Silvera’s ability to weave the strange and disturbing world of Death-Cast into a powerful character-driven narrative keeps readers on the edge to the last page, and drives a keen level of anticipation for the next offering from this gifted writer.

WHERE TO GET IT: To find They Both Die at the End, check your local public library, your local bookstore, or IndieBound. Also, check out Goodreads, Amazon, and Barnes & Noble.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Adam Silvera was born and raised in the Bronx. He has worked in the publishing industry as a children’s bookseller, marketing assistant at a literary development company, and book reviewer of children’s and young adult novels. His debut novel, More Happy Than Not, received multiple starred reviews and is a New York Times bestseller. Visit his author site for more information.

 

 

 

ABOUT THE REVIEWER: Lila Quintero Weaver is the author-illustrator of Darkroom: A Memoir in Black & White. She was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Darkroom recounts her family’s immigrant experience in small-town Alabama during the tumultuous 1960s. It is her first major publication and will be available in Spanish in January 2018. Her next book is a middle-grade novel scheduled for release in July 2018 (Candlewick). Lila is a graduate of the University of Alabama. She and her husband, Paul, are the parents of three grown children. She can also be found on her own website, Facebook, Twitter and Goodreads.