#AmReading YA

Love in English
Maria E. Andreu
Age/Genre: Young Adult, Contemporary, Romance
Publisher: Balzer + Bray
Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
Goodreads

Sixteen-year-old Ana has just moved to New Jersey from Argentina for her Junior year of high school. She’s a poet and a lover of language—except that now, she can barely understand what’s going on around her, let alone find the words to express how she feels in the language she’s expected to speak.

All Ana wants to do is go home—until she meets Harrison, the very cute, very American boy in her math class. And then there’s her new friend Neo, the Greek boy she’s partnered up with in ESL class, who she bonds with over the 80s teen movies they are assigned to watch for class (but later keep watching together for fun), and Altagracia, her artistic and Instagram-fabulous friend, who thankfully is fluent in Spanish and able to help her settle into American high school.

But is it possible that she’s becoming too American—as her father accuses—and what does it mean when her feelings for Harrison and Neo start to change? Ana will spend her year learning that the rules of English may be confounding, but there are no rules when it comes to love.

With playful and poetic breakouts exploring the idiosyncrasies of the English language, Love in English tells a story that is simultaneously charming and romantic, while articulating a deeper story about what it means to become “American.”

After being separated from her father for several years, Ana returns to the United States. Faced with a new home, a new school, and new friendships, Ana must navigate it all, while sometimes not being able to find the words to express herself. But, will she have to give up pieces of herself in order to fit into this new life?

This book was so flipping sweet! I swear, this was me at the end of it:

Though her worries were similar to those of many teens - grades, parents, crushes, Ana also had a language barrier to deal with. I really appreciated the way Andreu told this story of Ana's love/hate relationship with words. She did a great job capturing the frustration of not always understanding what people were saying, as well as not always having the words to be able to express your thoughts properly. 

Ana's musings about the mystifying nature of the English language amused me too. Homophones, letters with multiple sounds, and idioms vex me, and I'm a native speaker. I could only imagine it being even more baffling for a non-native speaker. The poetry exploring these linguistic oddities were highlights for me, and I loved seeing Ana's poetry evolve as her command of the language improved as well. The poems were also where Ana really expressed herself, and it was beautiful seeing her find her voice. 

I enjoyed watching Ana crush on boys and make new friends, but what I saw as the strength of this novel, was allowing us to gain a bit of perspective into the challenges new comers to our country face. There were times Andreu replaced whole words with symbols in dialogs, and it was such an effective way to help one understand what it was like for Ana. These gaps, where words should be, and the expectation that you could fully understand without all the words made me share their struggle. 

Overall, I found this to be a very delightful and touching story of fitting in and finding your voice.  It was filled with humor and warmth, and the ending had me shedding a multitude of happy tears. A very feel-good story. 

Wider Than the Sky
Katherine Field Rothschild
Age/Genre: Young Adult, Contemporary
Publisher: Soho Teen
Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
Goodreads

In the wake of sudden tragedy, twin sisters uncover a secret that rips open their world. Katherine Rothschild explores the pain and power of forgiveness in a stunning debut novel that will shatter your heart and piece it back together, one truth at a time.

Sixteen-year-old Sabine Braxton doesn’t have much in common with her identical twin, Blythe. When their father dies from an unexpected illness, each copes with the loss in her own way—Sabine by “poeting” (an uncontrollable quirk of bursting into poetry at inappropriate moments) and Blythe by obsessing over getting into MIT, their father’s alma mater. Neither can offer each other much support . . . at least not until their emotionally detached mother moves them into a ramshackle Bay Area mansion owned by a stranger named Charlie.

Soon, the sisters unite in a mission to figure out who Charlie is and why he seems to know everything about them. They quickly make a life-changing discovery: their father died of an HIV- related infection, Charlie was his lover, and their mother knows the whole story. The revelation unravels Sabine’s world, while practical Blythe seems to take everything in stride. Once again at odds with her sister, Sabine chooses to learn all she can about the father she never knew. Ultimately, she must decide if she can embrace his last wish for their family legacy—along with forgiveness.

Following her father's unexpected death, Sabine's life was uprooted. Relocated from her childhood home to a crumbling mansion was jarring enough, but learning about her father's "other life" shook her foundation to its core. Sabine made some questionable decisions while she struggled with these changes and her grief, but would she be able to undo some of the damage she had done? 

I have a penchant for grief books, and therefore, was eager to read Wider Than the Sky. I really don't have an opinion on the father's secret. I think the disclosure of his secret was added to the synopsis after I first found this book, and I will admit it is something I personally would find a bit shocking, but this story, for me, was about Sabine's grief. 

Not only had Sabine lost her beloved father, but she learned he was leading a life, separate from her, her sister, and her mother. This distorted what she knew about him, and I found her confused emotions understandable. I don't believe it was a reaction to what she learned, but rather that these secrets existed in the first place, and I sympathized with her need to come to terms with it all. 

I cannot say that I wasn't frustrated with Sabine's decisions though. They were reckless and sort of destructive, but I was happy she learned from her mistakes and made an effort to make amends. I appreciated that she was young, had experienced a significant loss, and really didn't have much support. Therefore, it was not difficult for me to forgive her impulsive behavior. 

I also have to mention, that I thought there was some really beautiful prose in this book. It wasn't out of the blue either, as Sabine was a lover of poetry, known to randomly spout it in bursts she called "poeting". It was fitting that her narrative had that sort of quality to it. All the Dickinson, The Cure, and the poetry mashup were things I greatly enjoyed as well. 

Overall, I thought this was a beautiful exploration of grief. There were tears, and I was touched. 

**ARCs received in exchange for honest reviews.

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