A 2015 Morris Award Finalist
Gabi is having an interesting start to her senior year of high school: her best friend, Sebastian, has finally come out to his parents, only to find himself kicked out; her other best friend, Cindy, gets pregnant, joining the statistical ranks of Mexican teen moms; and her father, the meth addict, is back home again, claiming he'll get clean for good this time. Gabi, though, is determined to get through her senior year and get into college (and maybe find a boyfriend), all while supporting her friends and surviving her family (her secret stash of special beef jerky and other treats will certainly help with that). She finds solace in her poetry class and writing poetry, and in writing letters to her father that she knows he will probably never read.
This was one that I knew the most about going into the Morris finalists challenge, and the one I was most excited to read. I really enjoyed it. The soap opera that is Gabi's life is perfectly told through Gabi's rapid-fire diary entries, and while it sometimes felt like so much was going on that other issues fell by the wayside (the fallout from Sebastian's coming out kind of gets dropped towards the end), it still managed to hold my attention and keep me invested and interested in what would happen next. I also loved all of the issues Quintero played with through Gabi - there's the identity politics of looking too white for a Mexican, the traditional gender roles and fear of sex that her mother and aunt espouses (and Gabi obviously ignores), the fat-shaming she gets from her mother and from herself. But through it all, Gabi's deep-rooted confidence manages to get her through, even when she thinks it can't. It's a great book, one that's bound to stick with you for awhile after you finish.
(Read as part of YALSA's Morris/Nonfiction Challenge.)
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