I Am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter

Literary fiction

Print length: 343 pagesKnopf Books for Young Readers, 2017

Description

Erika L. Sánchez’s I Am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter examines the restrictive ideal contained in its title. At the center is the expectation that a “perfect” Mexican daughter should give up college, remain at home after high school, and never leave her family. The book challenges that model by focusing on the tension between prescribed duty and a young woman’s desire to choose her own future. It presents family loyalty and personal independence not as simple opposites, but as pressures that shape how a daughter understands adulthood and belonging.

Reading profile

About this profile

Collected’s assessment, not reader ratings. Complexity runs from 1 (least demanding) to 5 (most demanding).

Writing: How much attention the sentences and language require.
Ideas: How much interpretation or abstract reasoning the book asks of you.
Structure: How much you need to keep track of speakers, timelines and connections.
Background knowledge: Prior knowledge needed to follow the book, beyond what it explains.
Emotional intensity: Emotional pressure, from gentle (1) to intense (5). Separate from difficulty.

Writing style

Conversational · Direct · Witty

Pace

Moderate

Tone

Dark · Earnest · Hopeful · Intimate

Structure

Linear

Focus

Character · Relationships · Voice

Emotional intensity

4 / 5

Reading complexity

1–5 · higher means more demanding

Writing: 2 / 5
Ideas: 3 / 5
Structure: 2 / 5
Background knowledge: 1 / 5

Themes

BelongingComing of ageFamilyFreedomGriefIdentity

About Erika L. Sánchez

Erika L. Sánchez writes poetry, young-adult fiction, and personal nonfiction with close attention to image, rhythm, and the weight of individual words. Poetry supplies the technical base of her prose, while an acerbic conversational humor keeps difficult material in motion. Her work repeatedly examines borders, both physical boundaries and the social limits imposed on women of color. She moves between English and Spanish without routinely italicizing or translating Spanish, allowing context to carry bilingual thought. In I Am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter, Julia is angry, funny, vulnerable, and resistant to the demand that Latina girls be likable or exemplary. The novel makes conflict within an immigrant family reciprocal: teenager and parents misread one another, and sacrifice and protection can become guilt or repression. Chicago is part of that structure, as Julia’s movement through neighborhoods, transit, museums, and public spaces opens routes toward art and belonging. Crying in the Bathroom shifts the same candor into linked memoir essays whose separate shapes accumulate into a larger account of depression, work, womanhood, and motherhood.

Book details

For the print edition listed above.

Publisher: Knopf Books for Young Readers
Language: English
ISBN: 9781524700508

Keep your books and notes in Collected for iPhone.

Apple Books is a service mark of Apple Inc. iPhone is a trademark of Apple Inc., registered in the U.S. and other countries.