When Lupita discovers Mami has been diagnosed with cancer, she is terrified by the possibility of losing her mother, the anchor of their close-knit Mexican American family.
In the midst of juggling high school classes, finding her voice as an actress, and dealing with friends who don’t always understand, Lupita desperately wants to support her mother by doing anything she can to help. While Papi is preoccupied with caring for Mami, Lupita takes charge of her seven younger siblings. Struggling in her new roles and overwhelmed by change, Lupita escapes the chaos of home by writing in the shade of a mesquite tree, seeking refuge in the healing power of words.
Told in evocative free verse, Lupita’s journey is both heart-wrenching and hopeful. Under the Mesquite is an empowering story about the testing of family bonds, the strength of a teenage girl navigating pain and hardship, and the kind of love that cannot be uprooted.
Review:
This book is another prime example of my horrible procrastination habits-- it took me months to finally read it, which was a silly choice on my part for Under the Mesquite is a beautifully written, emotional novel despite its brevity.
However, its brevity still prevented me from loving this book completely. It's about 250 pages long, but considering it's written in verse and covers so many years, it seems even shorter. This short length often prevents certain characters from being well developed, because they either leave Lupita's life after one year or seem to change completely in the time that she doesn't cover. In the grand scheme of things, though, this qualm is a bit insignificant in comparison to the wonderful development of Lupita and her writing. Poetry inherently makes everything simply sound more emotionally charged, but the detail and thought Lupita puts into her words elevate her writing even further, making it easy to connect to her situation. Her detail helps showcase her harried feelings about her mother's condition and her family, and coupled with just as wonderfully described moments of joy that inevitably occur, the narrative is truly something beautiful and heart wrenching.
It's not a flashy or action-packed book, and it fell too flat with certain characterization for my liking, but the intense emotion and lovely writing make Under the Mesquite worth a read.
Book details: Lee & Low Books/Hardcover/$17.95
Source: sent by publisher for review
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